Fall to Grace
by E Kelly
Summary: A young Batman faces a powerful corrupt Senator, a deadly assassin and a mysterious woman with a past as painful as his own. Slight AU from BBegins but very similar style. A Gotham Noir story.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Batman and all related characters are the property of DC Comics. This is not for money. 

Rating: R – for adult language and adult situations.

Please feed the authors! Don't forget to review.

**Batman: Fall to Grace**

By E Kelly

Part One: THE DIE IS CAST

_"They say a city in the desert lies – _

_The vanity of an ancient king._

_The city lies in broken pieces,_

_Where the wind howls and the vultures sing…"_

- Sting

Chapter One

Money and power are like lovers. Self-absorbed and self-sustaining, they need only each other to exist. Perfect soulmates, they were created at the dawn of civilization, and have been rutting joyfully throughout the ages, feeding endlessly on human industry and human greed. Money and power danced together in the bright Gotham night. And the rich and powerful of Gotham danced with them.

Stretch limousines clogged the quarter-mile long circular drive before the Mayor's mansion. The mansion itself was filled to bursting with CEO's, celebrities, bluebloods, paparazzi and politicians. Thick with extravagance, the air held a shimmer that hung over the gathering, perhaps the collective glitter of all the gold and jewels, clasping skin bronzed by the Mediterranean sun and set in hair sculpted by obscenely expensive artisans of vanity.

Affected laughter and the buzz of wheeling and dealing clashed with the requisite white bread pop band in the corner of the ballroom. Ambition was palpable in the air, some material, some the lust for power and some the fever for flesh. Vamps, male and female, stalked the ballroom with hungry eyes. It was a subculture that always existed around the wealthy and influential, a ripe undercurrent of decadent sensuality that must accompany the egos of the powerful.

If one were there simply to observe, to listen, all sorts of fascinating details could be gleaned from overheard conversation. A sharp eye and a keen ear had all the power of Gotham in a single room for careful perusal. Lawmakers basked among their entourages, ripe for a meaningful suggestion from an influential mover and shaker. Business-men and -women joked about exorbitant taxes and employee health benefits and did casual million dollar deals between drinks. Flunkies dashed to and fro, slobbering decorously, spilling secrets as breathlessly as they spilled their drinks.

"Fifty million, I said, fifty million! You must be trying to fuck me, Salinger! Fifty million for the rights to all the chemicals and their by-products to be discovered in that country in the next fifteen years. We're talking pure South American rain forest. The cure for goddamned cancer's probably sitting there right now in some butterfly's balls just waiting for us to come and harvest…"

"So I called Nedry at the ACLU and told him that if he didn't get off my back his little East Side apartment and its occupants were going to be all over the front page…"

"That situation was taken care of last night, Mr. Kallenbach."

"Of course, of course the education of Gotham's children is paramount; however, the time to move for further appropriations in the budget must be carefully selected…"

"Look, look, Teresa's moving in on Charlie Wales. She won't spread her legs for anyone worth less than a hundred mil you know…"

Bruce Wayne stood on the mezzanine, impeccably dressed in a black, velvet-trimmed Armani tuxedo. He leaned on the banister, appearing to be casually and rather apathetically watching the crowd below. But the hand in his pocket operated a miniature wireless multi-channel transceiver. In his ear was a nearly invisible speaker, which he tuned selectively to the network of tiny bugs with which he had seeded the room during his arrival rounds.

* * *

My eyes move slowly over the milling crowd below me. Somewhere among these capricious, oblivious people walks my prey.

I look to my first suspect, the rather short, lean fifty year old in the southwest corner of the room. Christopher Jameson, self-made financier, very tight with labor interests, several good friends in Washington. Given the traditional criminal connections with labor unions, and Callas' involvement with the Teamsters, Jameson might have been the one.

I cut my eyes to the far end of the ballroom, suspect two, Michael Marion, Deputy Director, Eastern Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation. His agents managed to corrupt the evidence, and since they've already been sacrificed as scapegoats, that points to Marion.

And suspect number three – has not yet made an appearance.

"Excuse me," a feminine voice with a heavy Czech accent breaks in on my thoughts, "You are Bruce Wayne?"

I turn to see Emily Enow, looking even more emaciated in person than she did in her fashion spreads. Automatically I turn on the smile.

"I've been wanting to meet you, but none of the women who know you would introduce me," she broke into a high-pitched giggle. I can see from her dilated pupils that she is high on some drug or another. "They are jealous. They all want to keep you for themselves."

"No woman has accomplished that yet," I say smoothly. "But maybe you can be the first."

She slinks up beside me, draping herself on my shoulder, and I keep her going by dropping sexual innuendos as my eyes search the crowd. Where is he? I know he's in Gotham; he should be here. One of these three men had pulled the strings to get Mason Callas off.

I hold my anger tightly in check, thinking of Callas walking free. Even if he was gone from Gotham (and had best not ever contemplate returning), even if his organization was in a shambles, Callas should not have escaped justice. Someone had made a serious mistake, getting that murderer off. A very serious mistake.

"No, I've never been to Prague."

"Oh, it is terrible, no place to shop." That got her going. She went on nonstop about the horrors of Prague's retail situation.

It had not been a simple thing to even narrow down who might be responsible for Callas' escape. Callas himself had sat right at the crux of the system where the lines of power disappeared into the hazy web of tangled alliances between industry, politics and crime. Therefore I had had to look for my next target amongst those well removed from open criminal activity. Whoever had manipulated that Grand Jury investigation was a man with power enough to not have to go outside the law. He could use the law for his own purposes.

Then I catch sight of the last one – John Fagen – coming down the stairs from the private residence on the third floor with his arm around a young woman's waist. US Senator and industrialist, his family has been a power in Gotham as long as mine. He put Jefferson on the bench so it follows that he could have influenced the Grand Jury with ease.

He whispers something in the woman's ear and leaves her to move down the crowded main staircase, pressing the flesh every step of the way.

"Excuse me, Emily," I say, breaking into her chatter. "I have always thought no woman could be too shallow for me, but apparently I was wrong." I leave her there, brow furrowing in confusion. Behind me I hear the guttural Czech word for "asshole".

The woman who had come down with Fagen had watched him for a moment, then slipped out the French doors that led onto the balcony. I don't recognize her from Fagen's known associates, so I follow her out.

She hears me approach, but she doesn't turn. Nice figure, simple flowing hairstyle, classically elegant dress.

"Good evening," I say, leaning on the ledge beside her and giving her a smile. "I saw you and I just had to introduce myself." I drop my voice to an intimate timbre as she finally turns her head to look at me briefly. "You're the most beautiful woman I've seen tonight. I'm…"

Her voice is flat as she cuts me off, "Please go away."

That surprises me a little, but I step back and say deferentially, "I apologize for bothering you," and I turn to leave. Then I stop and turn back to her, "Please forgive me. I don't mean to intrude, but…are you all right?"

I see just a glimmer of response to my concern in her eyes, but it is momentary, for she turns away quickly. She smiles – and it chills me. I notice that she actually is beautiful. Her features are southern European, maybe Spanish ancestry, with dark eyes and bee-stung lips, framed by long, thick, dark auburn hair. Around her slim throat is a single strand of perfect white pearls.

_White pearls. Falling._

A small, cynical laugh escapes her lips, and her voice is very soft, "All right? As all right as I get, I guess." Her eyes close for a moment, then she looks at me, really looks at me for the first time.

I'm familiar with being the object of avaricious female glances, but this is not the same. Her eyes are so dark they appear completely black. And they look straight into mine. She doesn't see my clothes, or my physique, or even my face, just my eyes.

Slowly, she says, "You are…kind to ask. I'm fine. Please leave me alone now."

"Would you at least tell me your name?"

"Marlowe DeSeve."

"Thank you." I try the smile again, but she looks away. I sigh, as if accepting defeat. "I hope your evening improves."

She glances up, a wave of her thick hair falling across her shoulder and masking half her face. Pushing it back with one hand, she smiles just a little and shakes her head at me. That's right, dismiss me. I'm just another smooth operator. She turns, again, to her contemplation of the darkness.

I head back into the ballroom, adding her name to my list.

* * *

It was after midnight when Alfred received the call to bring the car around.

"I trust your evening was successful, Master Bruce?" Alfred asked as he pulled the car away from the Mayor's mansion.

"I gathered some leads. Nothing that helped narrow down the suspects," Bruce said. Then he added, "Yet." He pulled down the computer concealed in the back of the seat and began checking the names of every person he'd seen with his targets.

At the manor he went straight to the cave to correlate the information he had so far. But, hours later, nothing was any clearer. Jameson had spoken with businessmen, Marion with politicians, and Fagen with both. They even shared some associates between them. It was all so blurry at this level, and they were all so well protected, hidden behind layers of power and money. Each one had respectability, position, and each was so deeply interconnected with others in power.

"Sir?"

He'd heard Alfred approach, but didn't look up until he spoke. "What is it, Alfred?"

The butler poured a fresh cup of coffee and set the pot down, "That is what I was about to ask you."

Bruce sat back, rubbing his eyes. "It's…complicated, is what it is. Uncovering these men is a bit more challenging than your average criminal."

"Yes," Alfred said mildly, "I imagine it would be. One might even wonder whether it is wise to attempt taking on such a foe."

"Wise?" Bruce smiled wryly. "Probably not." The smile faded as his face settled into its usual somber lines. "Probably not," he repeated thoughtfully.

"But, Heaven forbid you should let a lack of wisdom stop you."

Bruce crossed his arms over his chest. "Say I let it stop me. Then what am I doing?" He nodded around the cave. "What is all this?"

Alfred's eyebrows went up, "Borderline psychosis?"

Bruce shot him a narrowed glance, "Besides that. What good does it do me to bring in a crime boss like Callas if someone can just let him go free? Why does someone do that – let an animal like Callas escape justice? Because they think they can get away with it. They think no one can get to them."

"Perhaps no _one_ can," Alfred paused, "Think about what you are taking on. A man who controls judges on a Grand Jury, who can influence a federal investigation. This is taking things to a much higher level than ever before."

Bruce nodded slowly. "It's not even like going after the Police Commissioner, or the Mayor." He scowled, "For all the good that did."

"It has made a difference in the police. Captain Gordon…"

"That's a step in the right direction, but it's not enough."

"What will be enough?"

The question hung in the still air of the cave. Bruce met the gaze of the only person who knew him at all.

"I don't know, Alfred," he said.

Alfred Pennyworth watched the man he had raised from childhood turn away from the light between them and plunge his face into the shadows. Would anything ever be enough? Could Bruce not stop, no matter how high he had to go, no matter how dangerous it became for him?

There had been a time, long ago it seemed, when Alfred still had hope that somehow the inexorable course Bruce's life had taken could be diverted. Though it had been plain to him how deeply Bruce had been changed by that terrible night, how could he possibly have imagined, then? Even when Bruce had come to him, more serious than any twelve-year-old boy should ever be, and asked, no – ordered – him to make arrangements for an extended trip to China, he had thought it a childish whim and tried to dissuade him.

"Don't be silly, Master Bruce. You cannot leave school."

"They are not teaching me what I need to know. I want to go to school in China."

"What can they teach you there that you cannot learn here?" Alfred asked in genuine confusion.

"Martial arts. They teach them to children younger than me. I checked."

"Well, there are people who can teach you those things here."

"No. It's not the same."

"Master Bruce, you cannot…"

"I can and I will." Alfred remembered the look of frightening intensity with which he'd said it. Yes, frightening was what it was – that deep, dark well of pure will in the eyes of a child. And the young master had simply refused to argue any more about it.

Now, as he could see the arc of Bruce's life emerging, Alfred wondered how he could have ever thought it a whim. Now, he realized that Bruce had never had a whim, never a frivolous desire, never a diversion from this one fate.

But what fate was it to be?

Perhaps, Alfred reflected, I should have seen it all coming the first time he returned home, which had not been until just before his sixteenth birthday. He had allowed Alfred to stay in the East for eight months and assure himself Bruce had proper guardians, before sending him back to look after the Manor. And though Alfred had kept in constant contact and checked on him frequently in person, Bruce took no breaks in his instruction in the intervening years. He had been so unlike a teenager then, already so disciplined, so driven. Alfred's brow furrowed, making his eyes look pained as he thought of Bruce's second visit, at twenty, when he had finally told Alfred everything he was planning, and, so grave, asked if he wanted to stay.

"I know it sounds crazy, Alfred -"

"Yes, sir," he had replied mildly, "It is quite mad."

"This is how it's going to be," Master Bruce had said, unwavering, "I can use your help, but I'll do it alone if I have to."

"You do not have to do it alone."

There had been no question in his mind, nor the slightest hesitation in his response. Perhaps he had not really believed Bruce, even then. Perhaps he had. It would not have made a difference.

Then came the night a little over a year ago, when Bruce had rung from the study just before dawn and Alfred had found him, a bullet wound through his shoulder, half-dead from loss of blood and the window shattered in a thousand glittering pieces on the floor. As he'd worked to save Bruce's life, he had barely heard the delirious mutterings issuing from the young man's mouth, though the words had come together in his mind later.

"I shall become a bat."

_Iacta alea est_, as Caesar said. And the foreboding terror Alfred had experienced that night, seeing his boy so close to death, had not left him since then.

Something had changed irrevocably that night. And each night that had passed since it had grown. The cape and cowl had done more than give Bruce the fighting edge he had said was the original intention behind it. The Batman had become something else, what, Alfred was not sure. He wondered if even Bruce was fully aware of what he had created. Had he foreseen the waves that would ripple out from his actions the first time he'd put it on? Had he known how it would change him?

Because Alfred knew that there was to be no turning back. The question now was – how far will it go? Where would it end?

What will, finally, be enough?

Alfred feared the answer.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Captain Jim Gordon was working late again. He'd left the window of his office open as a kind of – invitation. He looked up from the reports for the twelfth time, and, for the twelfth time, was disappointed.

He lit another cigarette and wondered at how odd his life had become (or was that pathetic?), when he was hungry for the company of a man whose face he had never seen.

Turning back to his work, he breathed out the noxious smoke and tried to concentrate, but the black pit of worry, guilt and anger that roiled in his stomach would not let up. He should be home, he should be… But at home was a resignation he could not bear, and when he couldn't bear it he blew up, and he didn't want James and Babs to have to listen to that again. Not again. Especially since Barbara had finally taken to just not responding, which only made him angrier. She wasn't even trying anymore. How much longer until one of them…

He reached up under his glasses and rubbed his eyes hard. Sighing, he looked up – and there he was.

"Evening," Jim said.

He nodded once.

"How are you?" the small pleasantry sounded awkward in the otherwise silent room.

"I've been better."

"Callas?"

"Yes."

Jim could feel the anger in the gruff, steely voice.

"Doesn't make sense does it?" Jim sighed. "We do everything right and the Feds and the courts screw it up."

"It makes sense."

Jim frowned, staring hard at the shadowed figure.

"How is that? We know he had the FBI agents in his pocket – they've been indicted. But even Callas couldn't buy off a Grand Jury."

"He didn't have to," he stepped forward, unfolding his arms from over his massive chest.

"I've been working on cleaning up the last of Callas' operations. I just got word that Frank Toll may still be in the city."

"Actually I've heard that too. Rumor has it he won't leave without his kid. We've got 24-hour surveillance on the ex-wife and her relatives."

"And the child? Where is he?"

"The mother is smart – she doesn't trust federal protection. She won't even tell us where he is. All I know is he's not in Gotham."

Batman nodded curtly. "Anything on where Toll might be holed up?"

"Not much. The rumor came to us pretty round about, through a fence named Billy Saw. Said his sister tricked for a guy called the Squid – whose current gig is bodyguard for Toll while he finds his son."

"What's the girl's name?"

Gordon searched through the papers on his desk, "Kara…Kara Pensa. Said she works in a house down on the East End. That's where she met with the Squid. Says she doesn't know where he's staying or working."

Batman read over the report Gordon handed him.

"Who are you after?" Gordon asked.

It was a moment before he answered. "I'd rather keep you out of this, Jim."

Gordon was caught so off-guard by that, a small sound of surprise escaped his throat.

Batman looked up quickly, "What?"

Gordon crossed his arms over his chest, "I thought we'd learned to trust each other by now."

Another long silence. "It's not that." Gordon watched him as he moved, coming closer to the desk. In the time they'd known each other, Jim Gordon had only really seen the Batman in action four times. But that had been enough to convince him. Jim had been in combat. He knew what kind of soldier he was. He knew what kind of soldier most men were in this day and age. This man, however, was a warrior from another time. How that had happened, how such a man could have appeared here and now – he just didn't try to fathom it anymore.

Somehow it works better for me, Jim thought, if he's not quite…real.

But then he did something so painfully real, that Jim's eyes stung and he had to blink several times to clear them.

The black gauntleted hand reached out and touched the photograph of Jim's family, turning it just enough so he could look at it.

"Trust _me_, Jim. You don't need to be involved in this one."

Jim glanced down at the photo. They looked so happy…

"Well, I ap…" Gordon stopped, as he realized he was alone. Slowly, he got up and went to the window, staring out at the street. Looking back at the papers, he decided he'd worked late enough – too late. It was time to go home.

* * *

Leaving Jim's office, I head down to the East End, slipping over the edge of the old hotel at the corner of Mercy Street and 185th. I make my way down the wall and over to the window on the fourth floor. Good, she's alone.

"Tess."

"Jesus!" she jumps and spills some of her drink. "Couldn't you at least knock?" Reaching for a tissue to dab at the spots of her dress she mutters another curse under her breath.

"Sorry."

She looks up, "Don't sweat it. As stains go around here, these aren't so bad."

Tess was that rare animal, an old whore. She kept her hair colored a brassy blonde, though she was well past sixty, and she dressed far too sexily for her age. But she ran the cleanest house on the East End, she took good care of her girls, and she was smart and straight dealing. We had managed to work out a kind of alliance. I kept rivals from driving her out of business with violence, and she gave me information from time to time.

"I'm looking for a girl who works in the neighborhood - Kara Pensa."

She just nods, "Give me half an hour."

I move back to the window.

"Sure you don't want to hang around here? I can send a girl up. You know it's on the house for you."

"I'll pass. But thanks," and I disappear into the night, hearing her coarse chuckle behind me.

An old joke. Tess thinks it's funny that any man would turn down free sex.

I spend the time making a couple of appearances around the immediate area, to keep the neighborhood mindful of my presence. When I drop back by her window, she has Kara's address and the address of the house she works for.

She's just a little wisp of a girl, maybe early twenties, far-gone on heroin, the track marks plainly visible on her arms.

She's terrified by my presence in her apartment; afraid I've come for her. She breaks down, crying, the tears smearing mascara down her thin face. I wonder briefly about what I'm doing, about what I've become that this poor broken girl would stare at me with such abject fear.

"Kara," I keep my voice low and quiet to try to calm her, "I'm looking for a man. Squid. You know him."

She tries to speak, but finally just nods miserably.

"You told the police you didn't know where to find him. But I think maybe you were just scared. Do you know anything about where he is?"

"He…he got a call while we…were…He wouldn't let me go…I…I mean, he kept kissing on me and feeling me up while he was talking."

"What did you hear?"

"S…said they were moving and…and he was supposed to get his group's supplies to McKinley by morning. That's all. That's all I heard," she's gotten a hold of herself and realized she's not in danger. Reaching up, she wipes her face with an abrupt gesture, using her arm and the back of her hand. God, she's just a child, sixteen at most. I had been fooled by the makeup.

I feel my chest tightening with pain, standing there in her tiny, filthy room. What chance does she have? Just another lost soul. Why did Gotham have to have so many of them?

"Thank you, Kara. This will help me stop some brutal men from hurting more people."

She rubs her eyes, and then looks up at me. "If you see Squid, willya kick him in the balls for me?" Pulling at the neck of her shirt, she exposes her shoulder. "Shithead left teeth marks." The wound is ugly, and enflamed. She covers it again, and looks down, saying in a very small voice, "I can't show you where the other ones are."

I close my eyes for a second, then look at her. I try to control my voice, but it is thick with rage, "Kara, I want you to go tomorrow to the house at Mercy and 185th. Ask for Tess. Tell her I sent you. If you have to do this, you'll be better off working for her. Then you go to the doctor, and get those bites taken care of."

She is shaking her head, "Don't have no money."

"Tess will have the money." I take a step towards her, "Kara, please tell me you'll do this."

She just stands there, frozen, for a second.

"Kara."

"O…okay," her eyes on me, are wide. Just a child. "I will."

I'm gone before she can finish the last word, but, outside, I watch as she lies down on the low couch and curls up, trembling. I don't move until she is asleep.

By remote though, I've set the computer working on 'McKinley', and by the time I get back to the car there is a short list of probable locations that could serve as safehouses for a wanted mobster.

I go by Tess' first, and leave an envelope with a thousand dollars in it on her windowsill. She'll know where to look for it when Kara tells her I said she'd have the money.

It's the fourth place on the list. One of the snipers is lazy, or just no good at his job. I spot him from five blocks over, patrolling a rooftop in a group of old office buildings left in what was now the McKinley airfield warehouse district. I take him out first and figure the positions of the others from his location. Once I have the other three secured, I reconnoiter around the building. If he's smart, he'll be close to the ground floor, where he can get out quickly. There are cars parked on three sides. I go down to the street and spend ten minutes doing some good old fashioned tire-slashing. There's movement on the first, second and third floors. Those will be gunmen though; Toll won't be near any windows. I set charges on the fire escape from the second to the fifth floor, and one on the external power box, then move around to position myself on the opposite side of the building.

Now. I click the night-vision lenses into place in my mask and trigger the charges. I see the building shake as the lights go out. As I launch myself at a second floor window, I hear the fire escape separate and crash down, the horrendous shrieking of metal sliding on brick and concrete.

The glass shatters around me and I catch the floor, flip and land in a crouch. Shouts and running feet pound the hallway, as they head for the damage on the other side. Toll will be sitting tight for a minute, until the situation is assessed. Don't have much time.

I slip into the hallway, moving quickly. A few thugs have been deployed as sentries. I take them down as I come across them. I can hear that they've found the cars outside, and a shouted order dispatching some to get new transportation. Too bad, I was hoping they'd take him out in the open. Somebody here has a brain.

I find out how much of a brain when gunfire explodes in my direction and I leap to the side, smelling burnt powder and feeling heat burn tracks in the air past my head. Flashlights dance along the hallway, but I am already in the ceiling, moving past them as they spread out to search. I'm over the area they were protecting and I lift a tile briefly to peer into the room below.

Hello there, Frank. There are two other men in the room, one an ugly bruiser with a shaved head, the other – there's the professional in the bunch. Neat, calm, well-dressed, standing with Magnum raised, keeping watch through the cracked door.

I coil up and dive through the ceiling tiles into the professional. His arm cracks as my knee comes down on it and his hand releases the gun. I sink a drug tipped dart into his neck. He's out and I'm up as the bruiser launches at me. I sidestep, but he's a half-second faster than I expect and I go off-balance, landing only a glancing blow to help his weight carry him into the wall. Grounded again, I seize his arm, coming at me in a roundhouse punch, and jerk, to send him flying into Toll, who I'd seen produce a gun.

Toll yells, and I almost miss the sound of running feet outside the room. The door slams open – two swift kicks take the two who emerge into the room, their flashlights going flying. One goes out, but the other's beam falls on the bruiser, on his hands and knees, shaking his head. I see the tattoo – SQUID. Toll is scrambling on the floor feeling for a gun, but he's heading in the wrong direction. I smile.

My boot lands, crushingly heavy, on Squid's hand. His face turns up, twisted with fear. My other boot connects with his chin and his whole body lifts two feet off the floor, crashing down on his back. Toll cowers back into a corner at the noise. Now my foot is on Squid's neck. I can hear him choking, and I feel his hands on my ankle. I press harder.

I turn up the reflectivity of the lenses so they pick up what little light there is in the room. Squid sees my eyes begin to glow and he shrieks.

"Didn't your mother teach you how to treat women?" I growl, and stomp on his groin. The sound he makes before he loses consciousness from the pain warms my heart.

Toll is still frozen, but when I turn on him, he jerks up and runs for the door. I clothesline him. He goes down clutching his throat.

I drop to my knees on his chest, and the breath rushes out of him in a sickening gasp.

"Frank Toll," I say, grinding a knee into his gut, then I let up just enough that he can draw in a painful breath.

"oh god no please god no, don't…"

"Quiet, Toll," I smack him hard on the side of the head. "I don't want you in Gotham. Haven't I made that clear?" I bounce on his chest once and hear a rib pop. He screams.

"Where'd you get the protection, Frank? A little high class for you, isn't it?"

"He…oh god, he…he came…to me. He came to me! Please! God, please…"

"Who sent him?"

"I don't know!" his voice goes off into a low warbling wail as I twist his arm right to the breaking point – and hold it there.

"Someone arranged Callas' escape. That same someone was worried enough about you to send help. Who?"

Tears are squeezing out of his closed eyes as he gasps, "Part… part of… the deal… Callas… agreed to run, but… but had… to have someone get… his kid. Not mine… his son! I'm just cover… for his wife. Please!"

"Who?" I snarl. "Who's protecting him?"

"I don't know," he sobs. "I swear! Please, don't…"

I leap to my feet and drag him up, lifting him so his legs dangle.

"Should have left while you had the chance," I say and hurl him into the wall. He hits with a very satisfying thud.

I pause to listen, but the building is quiet. Apparently the rest of the hired muscle had taken the better part of valor and run. I radio the location in to the police as an anonymous tip.

Moving to the professional, I search him. Ankle holster with a snub-nose .38. Class ring, University of Virginia, 1979. Wallet, Italian leather – Paul Smithson, Washington D.C. license, two hundred dollars cash and three credit cards. I drop the cash on the floor and put the wallet away in my belt, then I search the pockets of his jacket. In one inner breast pocket is a small address book, but it's in the other pocket that I find it.

Federal ID. FBI.

That takes out Jameson, but it leaves Marion and Fagen. Either could have sent him.

I take the address book and ID with me as I go through the building to the roof. About two hours to dawn. I decide to make a patrol loop through the city before going home. I send the car instructions, and it takes off to wait for me outside of Little Bohemia.

I fire a jumpline and swing off, passing over the screaming squad cars converging on the building. I touch down on a rooftop and sprint, leaping for the next, pushing myself, testing my limits. Am I pushing the limits of my powers? Alfred is wrong if he thinks I don't question the wisdom of my actions. I know I am threatening forces that have the ability to destroy me. But if this city is ever to have hope I cannot just unleash my vengeance on those who live lives of desperation and have almost no options but crime. The ones who leave no options for others with their greed for wealth and power – they must be challenged. They must be stopped.

Coming to the edge of downtown, I swing around the side of a building and use a flagpole to vault up, catching the jutting eagle's head of Wayne Tower. There I pause to dial up the police band on the radio receiver in my ear, and listen, before choosing my next direction. From this vantage point, all of Gotham seems spread at my feet. Gotham…it will not be what it is forever. I will not let it.

A call comes in, nearby. I go to answer it.

Ten blocks away, a silent figure separated itself from the shadows, put away the night vision binoculars that had been focused on the Batman, and moved to follow him.


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

I had been curious, I suppose, when I was called in. And I'll admit I was more than surprised to learn it was him that wanted to see me. It was rare these days that he used me directly. But it shouldn't have shocked me. Who else would just jerk me off a deep penetration I'd been setting up for seven months?

"Nocturne," he nodded in greeting. He went to the mahogany bar, "Would you like a drink?"

"Is there a particular reason you flew me halfway around the world with zero notice?" I asked.

"I need you here," he replied, dropping ice cubes into a cut glass tumbler.

"In the States?" Odd. Though I still didn't really imagine just how odd.

"Here," he glanced at me casually as he said it.

Don't let him see anything. "That violates our agreement," I reminded him.

"No, it just changes it slightly. Consider this our new agreement."

"And what exactly is 'our' new agreement?"

"You take care of this situation for me," he indicated the computer and I glanced at the screen, "then you can leave again."

I let my eyes narrow as I stared at him. Finally, I gave a small nod, "All right, but why me?"

"Because you are quick and quiet. And you know Gotham intimately."

"It's been almost ten years," I said mildly, bending over to tap on the keyboard, watching the files displayed on the computer.

"I doubt it's changed that much."

"No," I said softly, "I doubt it has." I hid behind scorn, "But, come on, this is hardly my speed. Or yours. Why are you even bothering with this? What difference does a street vigilante make to you?" I got it suddenly. Of course. "He's put a little crimp in some of your operations, has he?" I laughed, enjoying the anger I saw in his eyes. "You're slipping, boss. Still, what do you need me for? He's breaking the law. Put Fibi on it."

"When the time is right. I don't want him brought in too soon. And I don't want just him. Look, this isn't some lone psycho with a hero complex. If he was, he could never have gotten close to me, now could he?"

I was beginning to get intrigued. "I suppose not."

"I need you to track him, find out who's financing him, and why. Someone is trying to take Gotham from me. They've put the fear of God into the street operators and they have their teeth into the police. I want to know who is behind this." He looked at me, smiling now, magnanimous. "I know this isn't your idea of the ideal assignment, but take care of this for me, and I'll make it up to you. I promise."

I knew my eyes were cold, and so was my voice, "That's very comforting, considering what your promises are worth."

But his voice, when he answered, seemed to suck the very light from the room, "There are some promises you can be sure I will keep, Nocturne."

Subtlety might be one of his strong suits, but he knew when to turn it off. And he knew me. What did he tell me; the last time I saw him? You know why you're good? Because you don't let yourself have any illusions of power. You know right where you fit in the scheme of things. Now, that's arrogance. Saying right to another's face, I like you because you know your place.

He indicated then with a tiny gesture that he was done with me. I left the room as he exited through a door opposite and I caught a glimpse of his latest lovely. He always seemed to have one waiting just on the other side of the nearest door. Must be a hell of a life.

It doesn't matter how many times I go over it, I still can't squeeze another ounce of useful information from the encounter. So I work, moving silent as a ghost across the city's rooftops, rigging miniscule EM spectral sensors on antennas and lightning rods, as well as the occasional jutting statue, laying out the grid I was slowly building across Gotham's inner city. I turn my mind to the facts I do know again, because anything is better than letting an awareness of where I am sink in.

The Batman first appeared fourteen months ago, attacking randomly, but quickly moving from junkies, muggers and pimps to suppliers, professional thieves, and extortion rackets. He cut a swath through Gotham's more serious crews in just a few months. Then he stepped it up, going straight for the heart of corruption in the city. I chuckle to myself as my mind's eye replays the photo from page one of the Gotham Times, May 20, last year – the Mayor's mansion with a gaping hole blown in the dining room wall. I've got to admit I like his style.

After that Batman wasn't playing; went after the Roman, the Gallianos and Callas. It had taken me about two days to figure out this was all about Callas. That's what has the boss pissed off enough to call me in. That, more than anything, has me interested. Callas was his number one front man in Gotham's underworld. I actually remember the little pug from my early days. This 'vigilante' managed to strike pretty damn close and he barely dodged that bullet. With a little checking I could plainly see he'd had to move rather obviously to get Callas off and out of the country. And he doesn't like ever being forced to do anything obvious, or being forced at all for that matter. So, there's no way he'd tolerate this situation. Something he can't control? Not in _his_ city.

I stop and look out over Gotham, the sounds from the street far below me reach my ears, a low and painful, constant moan. The harsh, hot wind blowing up from the canyons of the streets pulls at me. Only here, only in Gotham would someone even conceive of making a grab for power in this very bizarre way. The boss is right, though, there's no way this is a loner. He never could have lasted this long and reached so high without a power structure behind him. And his equipment, a custom made car and jet (the Batmobile and Batwing the papers call them. Gotta love the press this guy's getting.) Then there's that little thing about the cops turning a blind eye. That's costing someone some serious cash.

I flip the LCD lens over my left eye. TRACKING… the display reads, but nothing's showing up. Still don't have enough sensors out. That's all right, I'll finish the night widening the grid, just like I've done for the last two weeks, and tomorrow I'll go back undercover on the streets. The connections are there; I just have to work it out. Find who benefits from his activities, and somewhere there are allies.

The display suddenly changes before my eye. TARGET blinks red, then a location begins to scroll up. I move immediately, pulling the binoculars out. I go to ground on a rooftop ten blocks from the signal as it begins to move. I crouch, searching with the binocs. There, a shadow, too high and too fast to be natural, a glimpse of something flapping like leathery wings. I dial up the magnification and see, just for a second – my god…

The dark figure seems to fly between the buildings. It catches a horizontal flagpole, changing direction in mid-air. In the light spilling on the flag, he finally resolves into the form of a man, as he swings around like an Olympic gymnast and drops out of sight.

I pause. No wonder on the streets, they talk about whether he's really a man. Luckily, I'm not given to letting an image, no matter how impressive, overwhelm my reason. Spend enough time in this business and you know better than to believe anything you see.

I move, cautiously. I'm not used to mountain climbing on fifty floor buildings. Slipping silently down a fire escape, I freeze, hearing a muffled cry. Moving with extreme care, I manage a vantage point to catch sight of the last of it. Two men running for their lives, three more unconscious in a heap. And a fourth flying through the air, landing like a case of bricks.

He straightens, and for an instant, I see him, cut by stark shadows from the streetlamps. Then he's gone. I blink, and search the shadows. But he's simply not there. I feel an eerie shiver crawl up my back, and I have to laugh at myself.

This is a clever set up. A hero, the people call him. As if there was such a thing. Absolutely brilliant. Get the public behind your enforcer, make them think he's working for them, distract them with a mysterious vigilante (probably had some marketing exec work up the image). And they buy it; swallow it whole. Their hero.

Haven't they heard? Heroes are dead.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Anthony Jurado had been with the Gotham City field office almost since he'd graduated from Quantico. That was after picking the FBI over the NFL, and he retained the bulk, even now, that had made him such a good linebacker. But it would be fairly obvious to even a casual observer watching as he leaned his large frame against a desk and pushed his small wire-frame glasses up his nose, that he was too thoughtful a man to have chosen a profession that did not challenge his mind as much as his body.

"Cyn," Jurado gestured to the woman entering.

Cynthia Williams came to lean on the desk beside him, saying softly to him, "What is going on?"

He shook his head, "No one seems to know. He's been in a tizzy since he got -" Tony cut himself off as Jeremy Carter, new head of the Gotham field office, entered.

Carter cleared his throat loudly but he didn't look at them as he said, "I've just returned from Washington with new orders which are going to require some… restructuring."

Williams and Jurado shared a glance.

"I've got to take Karanov's team off the Grieco case…"

"What?" Cyn broke in. "They're right on top of them, we can't…"

"It's done, Williams."

"Why?"

"We have a higher priority situation."

"And that is?"

"Your team, and Karanov's, are now on police captain James Gordon for abuse of authority and protection of illegal activity. Jurado, you're to quietly move Randall's team to you task force. Pull a few of Holt's men too, but that's unofficial. They need to appear to still be on Holt's cases. You two will work together to coordinate the investigations."

Cynthia stared steadily at Carter as she took the file folders from his hand.

"Whose brilliant idea is all this?" she asked.

"Well, the Director called me in personally," he said, at last looking at them with a halfway scared, halfway belligerent expression.

"Didn't happen to tell you why this is suddenly so important, did he?" Tony inquired, his eyebrows going up as he looked over Cynthia's shoulder at the second file.

"Actually, his exact words were 'orders from the top'."

"Isn't that what the Nazis said?" Cyn muttered under her breath, but loud enough for Carter to hear.

He ignored it. "I need you two with me right now," Carter said. "We've got a meeting at four with the Gotham PD Internal Affairs office."

"Now that ought to be fun," Jurado said. "We can explain why we're spending our time on their people instead of criminals."

"Apparently some of their people are criminals," Carter snapped. "Look, I know they're not likely to be happy about this…"

"I don't think I'm happy about this," Tony said.

"Yeah, me neither," William's eyes flicked up and bored into Carter's.

Tony let Cyn do the stare down; she was so good at it. He watched Carter squirm. Why did the weasels always get kicked to the top? he wondered. Cyn wasn't giving him an inch. A tall, dark-skinned woman, with broad, regal features, she had absolutely perfected that cool, professional demeanor common to most female agents. Meaning she could come across as a real ballbuster when she wanted to. He loved to watch her work someone, especially someone who deserved it as much as Carter did right now. Mealy-mouthed little yes-man. Something else was going on here.

"Orders are orders, Williams," Carter finally managed, but he sounded more than a little whiny. "Now I don't want to hear any more about it. Come on, let's get to that meeting."

"Where we'll get to hear lots more about it," Cynthia said.

Carter shot her a warning look, but she just got up and headed for the garage. She drove, and the ten-block ride to IA headquarters was quiet.

Carter stopped at the entrance and pinned them both with a glare, "We on the same page here?"

"Of course," Cyn replied coolly. "Sir."

Tony just nodded once.

Carter opened the door and they followed him in.

Matthew Abel, director, Internal Affairs Division, GCPD, was waiting for them, so they were immediately ushered into his office. At fifty-eight he was the guy the stereotype of the Gotham cop was based on – seventy pounds too heavy, balding, with a bushy moustache, jowly face and a thick lower West Side accent, he nonetheless had an exceptional investigative mind. More importantly his record of integrity was unassailable.

Carter introduced everyone, "Captain Matt Abel – Special Agents Cynthia Williams and Tony Jurado." They shook hands and took seats before his desk.

Abel smiled pleasantly, offered drinks which they refused, then sat back in his creaking chair. "So, Mr. Carter, what's this all about?"

Tony groaned inwardly as Carter shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat before answering. The man had simply no finesse at all.

"You know we've had a team on the Batman vigilante for a month…"

"Sure. Had any luck?" Abel tried to hide the amusement in his eyes. But he didn't try very hard.

Now Carter was pissed, and it was obvious of course. "No," he said flatly. "But we've just received orders to step up our investigation."

Tony glanced at Cyn, catching her eye. They could both see that Abel knew what was coming.

"Part of those orders," Carter cleared his throat again, "are to create a task force to investigate James Gordon."

Abel's face didn't move, but his eyes went cold. His voice was very calm as he spoke, "I appreciate the Bureau informing Internal Affairs."

"We expect…" Carter paused for a split second, "We're going to need your help if we expect any charges to stick."

Abel looked at them each in turn, then folded his hands on his ample belly and sat back.

"I have to tell you, Agent Carter, I don't think that's realistic."

Tony quickly hid a grin behind his hand and saw that Cyn was loving this. Carter was turning red.

"Why not?" he demanded.

"How long have you been in Gotham, Mr. Carter?"

"I was transferred to command of this field office three months ago."

"Ah," Abel said quietly, looking down. He glanced up at Jurado and Williams, "How about you two?"

"Four years," Tony said.

"Two," Williams answered.

He looked down again, nodding. Then, he swiveled his chair and stood suddenly. Crossing the room, he took a photograph off a low shelf and brought it back to his desk.

He showed it to them. It was a group of four middle-aged cops, Abel among them. They were at a party, wide smiles, arms around each other or holding up beers, posing for the camera.

Abel pointed at the man on his right in the photograph.

"Steve Barnet," he said. "We were partners for 23 years. It wasn't easy being a good cop in Gotham in those days. The Commissioner and captains were so deep in the pockets of the criminal powers they could even afford to buy off IA, so all you could do was what little good you could do – and hope they let you keep doing it. Sometimes they didn't. Steve was a brave man. When he finally couldn't take seeing another criminal he'd arrested sprung by his superiors for a pay-off, he tried…" Abel had turned the picture so that he could look at it, and his hands were tight on the frame. "He tried to nail the maggots." He relaxed suddenly and set the picture carefully on his desk, facing Carter. "I heard it was the Commissioner himself that ordered the hit on him."

Always unable to hide his emotions, Carter looked appalled.

"Jim Gordon brought the charges that finally ran that bastard out of town." Abel's voice was tight. "And he's been instrumental every step of the way in cleaning up this department. I wouldn't even have this job if he hadn't started the investigation on my predecessor…"

"I understand," Carter interrupted, too loudly, "this may be difficult, given personal loyalties. But that doesn't change the fact that Gordon is breaking the law."

Abel came back hard, "How, exactly, is this your jurisdiction, Agent Carter?"

Carter brought up his attaché and popped it open. He dropped a stack of file folders on Abel's desk.

"Six cases of interstate police cooperation in which Gordon is suspected of conspiracy to protect illegal activity."

Abel looked at the folders, his jaw tightening.

"If this is about the vigilante, why don't you just go after him?"

Now Carter smirked, "Just good law enforcement tactics. Gordon is visible and once we have him we can offer him immunity in exchange for his information, and later, his testimony."

"And you're willing to take down the best cop I've ever known because you're not a good enough agent to nail your primary target?"

Carter's eyes narrowed, and he leaned in towards Abel. "A good cop?" he sneered. "And you think _you_ are a good cop? I'm supposed to be impressed that you and Gordon are establishing your own power structure by taking down your superiors one by one? And how are you doing that? With the help of a criminal. You use a man who ignores the law, who seems to think he _is_ the law, to further your own purposes. Now, we're willing to leave you out of this, provided you cooperate. But if the Gotham City Police are not only going to ignore, but collaborate in the illegal activities of a vigilante – well, you should have kept it within state lines. I do have jurisdiction and Gordon is going down. Now, do you want to join him?"

The two men's eyes warred for a long moment.

"Jurisdiction," Abel said softly, his gaze unwavering, "from the Latin. Meaning the right to apply justice within a certain area. You haven't been in Gotham long enough to learn this yet, Special Agent Carter, but for the first time in my life, the right to apply justice here means more than who knows how to manipulate the system to get what they want. Now, if you want to threaten me into cooperating with you, then you will get the sort of cooperation that earns."

"I can and will take you down too, if I have to. Warn Gordon – and you're gone."

"I said you had my cooperation."

Tony watched Carter try to think of something else to say, so he could have the last word. Finally, he just nodded curtly, scooped up his folders and threw them into his briefcase as he stood. Williams and Jurado stood too. Carter was already on his way out of the room, so they nodded at Abel and followed him.

On the street, Carter fumed, but kept it to himself. Tony had them drop him about halfway back to the office, saying he needed to go to the grocery on the corner and he'd take a cab home. He entered the store, but exited immediately after the car pulled away, and he headed back the way they had come.

Abel was preparing to leave for the day when Tony entered his office again.

"Special Agent Jurado," he said, neutrally.

Tony didn't bother with preliminaries, "I know you're right."

Abel relaxed a bit. "What's going on?"

"I don't know yet. Carter's a lackey, some rich boy who was appointed to please his daddy, and all he knows how to do is say 'yes, sir'."

"So, who is he saying 'yes, sir' to?"

"Says the orders came from the Director of the Bureau."

"Why? Why now?"

Tony shrugged.

Abel closed his eyes, shaking his head, "Goddamn, I hate this crap! To protect and to serve. That's what they tell you that you're going to do. What they don't tell you is about this political shit! Gordon!" he slammed a fist down on his desk. "Do you know what it will do if you take him in? Finally, finally – it's the bad cops who have to hide and live in fear. You take Gordon…you don't understand how important he is." Abel grinned suddenly, "Ballsiest cop I've ever met, Jim is. And absolutely incorruptible. I don't blame you for being worried about the Batman. It's…weird, to say the least."

"You ever seen him?" Tony asked suddenly.

Abel stopped and looked at him, his grin fading. "Once, for a second. He just stepped over the edge of a thirty-two story building and dropped out of sight." He leaned in, face serious, "He makes me nervous too, okay? Hell, he makes Gordon nervous. But I trust Jim… and Jim trusts him."

"Why?"

Abel shook his head slowly, "He doesn't talk about it. I can tell you one thing, though. Taking Gordon won't get you any closer to the Batman. Even if he knows who he is, he'll never turn on him. Jim believes in what he's doing. He'll never turn," he repeated.

"So," Tony said, pushing up his glasses, "you don't know anything about the Batman?"

Abel looked a little surprised by the question. He thought for a moment. Slowly, he said, "I know…he's," he stopped, and frowned, "he's making a difference. I don't know why it should work this way but…something's different now. A couple of years ago, I wouldn't have," he chuckled, "I _never_ would have had the guts to chew the ass off an FBI field director like I just did. What is it? Courage? Or insanity? Whatever it is, I'm going to ride it as long as it lasts. You take what you can get in Gotham. To do what good you can do."

Tony contemplated that for a moment, having been in the city long enough to know the truth of it.

"I'm in charge of the task force on the Batman," he told Abel.

The older man smiled sympathetically, "You know, Gordon once had orders to bring him in, too."

Tony rolled his eyes, "Yeah, and look what it's just gotten him. Someone _very_ high up is pretty pissed off. I can't put the brakes on this. Neither can you."

The older man met his gaze steadily, but Tony couldn't miss the sadness in his voice as he said, "I know."


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

I had programmed the computer with search routines before I went to sleep, so by the time I awoke the results were waiting. Paul Smithson's driver's license checked out with the Washington DC Department of Motor Vehicles. The credit cards had some minor activity, but the accounts were relatively new. But there is no Paul Smithson with the FBI, Special Agent or otherwise. The ID is a perfect forgery. Paper, ink, hologram, embossed seal – all the exact same as the FBI uses. It takes me most of the afternoon to confirm this.

The diluted venom I injected "Smithson" with should keep him out for at least twenty-four hours. Since I had taken all his ID, he's still listed as John Doe at the hospital and no one should yet know to clean out his apartment. Disguised as an electrician, cropped blond wig in place, complexion lightened, face aged slightly and waist padded liberally, I take the elevator to the tenth floor.

Picking the lock takes all of thirty seconds. The apartment is sparsely furnished, barely lived in. There isn't even a dresser in the bedroom, only suitcases. Nothing is revealed among the neatly folded clothes, but I wouldn't have expected there to be. Even if he wasn't FBI, he'd known what he was doing. I examine the suitcases themselves. One has a false bottom, but all I find beneath is a fitted foam piece for his guns.

I go over the bed, the mattress, the nightstand. Nothing. I remove all the vent covers in the apartment. Nothing. The bathroom, the kitchen. Popping the cover off the temperature gauge in the freezer, I find a miniaturized computer disk.

Handling it carefully with tweezers, I drop it into a small plastic bag. Then I replace the cover, check the apartment to make sure I've left no sign of my presence, and exit after waiting for voices to pass down the hall.

On the street, I pass into an alley and pull out the palm computer. Opening it, I put the disk in place and begin the analysis of its contents. The files are encrypted, so the palmtop calls up the main computer, but it's still going to take some time.

Night is just falling, the setting sun turning the sky above the city bloody. I walk, heading out of this mid-range neighborhood and making my way down the older, less cared for streets. I watch the faces I pass, people lost in living their lives, so many lives, lost in this city.

Always, always my feet lead me back. Sometimes it seems like my whole world revolves around this one spot.

_White pearls. Falling_.

Somehow I always seem to come here, like this – never wearing the mask. Why is that?

_My father's hand. Pushing me back_.

Here – then gone. If I open my eyes (when did I close them?), they'll be lying right here at my feet.

_My ears. Ringing. I'll never hear any sound again except this horrible, head-splitting ringing_.

Right here at my feet, bleeding, dying…

_Red pearls_.

Gone.

My body reacts to the sound a millisecond before my mind does. My head snaps up, then I hear it, a body striking brick and a woman's cry, cut off. Men, laughing. I'm at the corner and I look quickly around it, then pull back.

One woman, six men. One has her by the hair pressed against the side of the building. I saw the glint of metal in his hand, but couldn't tell if it was a knife or a gun at this distance. The others are ranged around them. They urge him on with hoots and laughter. The woman makes no sound.

Armed. See if a witness will cool them down.

I step out and walk unhesitatingly towards them. One sees me and signals the others. I keep walking.

"Bade, man!" one hisses. "Ease up."

Bade looks over his shoulder as I come close, and I see the woman's face. I recognize her. And even as that registers, I see her move to take advantage of his distraction. He doubles over with a gasp as her knee connects with his crotch, the knife clattering to the sidewalk. The others are surprised and, as she shoves Bade into one, I slam an elbow into another's face, crunch a third's knee with a kick, and catch another with a punch to the throat. The last is already halfway down the street.

I move to stand between her and the men as they stumble up, only glancing at us and taking off running as best they can.

I turn to her. Masking my voice with a gruff East End accent, I ask, "Are you all right?"

She is not the slightest bit less possessed than when I met her at the Mayor's mansion, though she looks as different as night and day. Her dark hair is slicked back, her eyes thickly outlined in black, her full lips painted deep red. Instead of a tasteful evening gown she is wearing a black leather mini-dress that accentuates her figure to the point of obscenity.

"I'll live," she says, but she doesn't sound too happy about it. She glances at me briefly, "Thanks."

"No problem. You want me to walk you home?"

She looks surprised by the suggestion. "No. I'll be fine. It isn't far."

I let her go. Marlowe DeSeve.

The computer beeps softly at me, and I step back into a shadowed doorway, pulling it out. The information on the screen brings it all into focus.

Paul Smithson, FBI, was actually Wilson Paul, National Security Agency. Only John Fagen could leverage an NSA agent. Fagen had been a Senator for twenty years. By far the most powerful and dangerous one of all. The last time I'd seen him, he'd been with Marlowe DeSeve.

I follow her.

When I'd run her name she'd come up as an employee of Norton-Stewart & Associates, a Gotham based political fund-raising consultation firm, though she was with the Washington office. Perhaps she was just a woman with dangerous tastes, out walking the streets at night alone, dressed like that. She's stopped two blocks up, and I watch from around a corner as she unlocks a door next to an empty storefront with a For Rent sign in the window. I move cautiously as she heads up the stairs, the door closing behind her. A moment later a light goes on in a window above the store.

I raise an eyebrow. This isn't a residential area. Warehouses line the street behind her building and just two blocks over the crack houses and hooker hotels began. Strange place for a Washington businesswoman to stay.

Quickly, I cross the street and duck into the alley beside her building. Leaping easily, I catch the edge of fire escape and swing myself up, landing silently on the platform. The blinds are down over the window, but one slat has caught at the side, leaving a half-inch gap. Unfortunately, the angle is such that I can only see a couple of feet along the wall fronting the street.

I can see her moving behind my line of sight by how the light from the lamp changes. Then she crosses to the front window, pulling the blind up so she can look out at the street. She lifts a hand to rake her hair back. I see her fingers shake slightly. She hadn't shown a hint of fear on the street. I leave her to her privacy. No need to invade it until I find out I have to.

I walk until I can catch a cab downtown. Fagen. I had known he was the most likely candidate but I suppose I had hoped it would turn out to be one of the lesser men. No such luck. Staring out the car window I think about the layers of power on which Gotham is built, the structure of the system which keeps so many good people trapped. That structure is entrenched and unyielding, and John Fagen knows it well. Better than I do, for I am outside of it. I think about how far I am willing to go.

The cab pulls up a few blocks from Wayne Tower. I pay the driver and walk until I am alone. Then, I remove a sewer cover and drop down, making my way to the hidden entrance into the old sealed off boiler room of the Tower. Not the most pleasant way to get to an underground lair, but I can keep it secure.

I emerge unseen and take to the roofs. I want to check on Kara, so I head for Tess' place. But the city is boiling with violence tonight and it is one gang fight, three muggings, two armed robberies and one homicide before I reach my destination. Through it all I cannot remove from my mind the image of a powerful man sitting in ease and comfort while the city seethes.

Tess doesn't jump this time when I speak from the shadows. She seems to be expecting me.

"How's Kara?" I ask.

"Dead."

It is a moment before I can control myself enough to speak.

"What happened?"

"She came in, we got her fixed up. But then, she told me she had a party she had to work tonight, something she couldn't get out of. She wouldn't let me send anyone with her. They found her body in a dumpster a couple of hours ago. Kid couldn't catch a break," she says, downing the last of the drink in her glass. Looking over at me she says, "Whoa, big guy," though the only move I've made is the involuntary clenching of my fists, "it was just a couple of scumbags. Got too high and lost control. It happens all the time. The police already have them. That's how I found out."

I feel my jaw tighten painfully. I nod.

Turning to refill her glass, I hear her say, "You're going to kill your…" but she stops when she realizes I am gone.

Outside her window, for a moment, I can only close my eyes. Just another lost soul. Just another dead hooker. She probably won't even make the obituaries in the paper. Death, always at my shoulder, seems to be wrapping me in its cold embrace tonight.


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

John Fagen owned four homes; two in Gotham, his residence, and his ancestral home; one in Washington, and one in Palm Springs. At sixty-five, he was fit, not given to fat like most men his age, with steel gray hair, impeccable grooming and perfect self-possession. Every item in his house had been chosen with extreme care, placed just as he wanted it. His staff learned quickly to make sure nothing was moved out of its designated position, or they were no longer staff.

Alone in his office, he stood near a small gaming table, examining a chess board. He loved the game, and generally had a match going on. Between legislative session, he'd taken to playing long distance by email with his good friend, the current chairman of the Congressional Ways & Means Committee. Will was a wonder with making the deals necessary to pass a budget through the American political system, but he still had a bit to learn about chess.

Everyone thought good strategy was about power. But what was power, really? Money, some said, though Fagen knew that was more a product of power than its base. Information, said others. That was close, but not quite it. He had found power to reside primarily in the weakness of others. It was a kind of vacuum that begged to be filled, though most simply couldn't. They couldn't even fill the holes in themselves, which was what made them weak.

The only thing that really bothered him about this situation was that. You had to know someone's weakness in order to exploit it. He had spent his life studying the system of wealth and privilege that he had been born into, puzzling out all the intricacies, learning not only the rules, but also the underlying dynamics that made it all work. And he became extraordinarily skilled at navigating all the complicated rapids, an expert athlete at the heart-pounding sport of power. Governor at thirty-eight, Senator at forty-three. He'd never run for President because he was not a fool. And no one had inhabited the Oval Office in fifteen years that he could not control, or work around.

His world was built on a supreme order, and Gotham was the foundation of that world. His home, his city, he had made certain that it was the greatest city the world had ever known – he and his family before him. The law? They didn't follow the law, they made the law and they knew what the law was – a story told to the people to keep them quiet; a tool, like any other. Would Gotham be what it was today if his great-grandfather had obeyed the Prohibition laws in the 30s? Look what happened to Boston when they closed all the speakeasys; everyone came to Gotham. (Of course his ancestor had a hand in making sure the G-men concentrated on Boston to begin with.) And now, would Gotham's banks be the most powerful in the world if they did not launder the trillions of the drug cartels? Would his city still be the crossroads of the world if it wasn't the place you could have anything or do anything with the right connections? Put a stop to the drugs and guns running through Gotham, and they would just move somewhere else. You had to keep the big picture in mind. Business was business. And business was always good for the city.

People didn't understand. Reality didn't change. There were pros and cons to everything. Even things that, on the surface, seemed evil and wrong. Everyone was evil and wrong, and everyone was good and right. And, ultimately, everyone had an angle, something they wanted, or needed. Something they were trying to get.

So, what do they want? And why go about it this way?

The Bureau teams have Gordon cornered, office bugged, he thought. They already have tapes on him giving information to …god, it's so ridiculous – 'Batman'. What is the world coming to?

He examined the chessboard. His opponent had set up an elegant defense.

I don't want them to move yet. I don't want him going to ground. I need him out and about. Let him expose himself a bit more. Nocturne has him targeted and should be able to produce some information shortly. So I will keep my counterattack back for the moment, and see what he does next.

His eyes moved over the positions of each of his opponent's remaining pieces. Ah, that is where the offensive would come from. He looked to his pieces to decide how to lay his trap.


	7. Chapter Seven

Part Two: FACE TO FACE

_This whole town is haunted._

_There will never be anything new._

_Precious pain –_

_Empty and cold, it keeps me alive._

_I gave it my soul so that I could survive._

_Keeping me safe in these chains…_

Melissa Etheridge

Chapter Seven

I've learned a lot about John Fagen in the last three days.

He was born to great wealth and a long line of legislators. His great-grandfather was Mayor of Gotham for forty years at the turn of the century. He is very active in the party, one of five men forming the Finance Committee as a matter of fact. His financial holdings are extensive and his political record includes a long tenure on Ways & Means, as well as several years as Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Putting it all together is going to take patience. Some of it has already begun to come clear, and it's not pretty. He has a consistent record of sacrificing the weak for the interests of the strong. Things like cutting free lunch programs for poor children in favor of pork contracts to government suppliers, the infamous $200 toilet seat kind of contracts. Worse, I've tracked down a more insidious kind of corruption, a callousness that chills me to the bone. Six years ago, a federal toxic waste removal plan 'negotiated' by Fagen went from a safe, though expensive, facility that would have neutralized toxicity, to a cheap and easy dumpsite right outside Sprang Station, a pitifully poor immigrant neighborhood that has begun to produce more than its fair share of childhood cancer cases. None of this is anything I can use, because it's all perfectly legal. It's just the way…the system works.

My fists clench until my knuckles ache.

So what do I have? I dug a little deeper into Marlowe DeSeve. She's been receiving paychecks from Norton-Stewart for four years; however, no one at the Washington office knows who she is. There's no other record of employment anywhere. She doesn't have a credit history either. I did find a Virginia driver's license on her, showing her current address as an apartment in Arlington, not far from Fagen's Washington home. A subsidiary of one of Fagen's real estate companies owns her building. I recall how intimately he held her about the waist and whispered in her ear. It seems most likely given how thin her cover is, that she is a professional call-girl, kept by Fagen and perhaps others. This may be useful but I doubt it. Mistresses may often have a lot of confidential knowledge, but Fagen is not the sort to be tripped up by one of his women talking.

Wilson Paul has turned out to be the kind of agent plausible deniability is based on. He's officially on a leave of absence from the NSA, meaning if I try to make a connection between him and Fagen, he will simply be sacrificed and I'll be back to square one. Still, with some information from Jim and the computer disk I found in Paul's apartment, I'm beginning to track down his movements over the last few months. It looks like he's been protecting some of Fagen's other interests besides Toll.

Then there's Callas' Grand Jury. I can see how easy it was for Fagen to manipulate the system, apply pressure at just the right points, but the specific reasons why remain foggy, whatever it was Callas had on him. And until I can find that, or something like it, I have nothing.

The law is not my ally in this. It is too much under the influence of my enemy and men like him. This cannot end with John Fagen jailed… I am going to have to drive him from Gotham, rip his structure out from under him in order to see him fall.

The rage I feel is so intense I am forced to wonder if there is something about John Fagen, some reflection of myself and what I might have become if not for…

This thought is the worst, the deepest, most taunting question of my life. The thought that comes closest to the insanity Alfred gently accuses me of. I will not let myself push it away, though I feel the madness of it, so close.

Should I be grateful for the bullets that cut my parents down on that dark street? Plummeted into a world that had no reason, forced to wring some sense from life… I remember… I remember the night I wrapped my hands around Fate's cold throat.

I had not slept normally for a year and that night, even after the customary bedside reading I was still sitting up, wide-awake. Alfred puttered about the room, dusting dustless tabletops, rearranging objects on them, then putting them back the way they had been, unwilling to turn out the lights and leave me alone in the dark. This night. It was one year ago this night. I was somewhat aware that Alfred was searching for words, for some way to reach me. Each day that had passed saw me withdrawing further and further inside myself. Isolation was my only companion now. I saw how others wanted to reach out to me but could not bear it – my pain, my lost and bleeding woundedness. No one lasted long in the face of such devastation.

Still Alfred found ways to stay busy in the room. He was waiting. Every night for one year he waited for the question I always asked.

Did the police catch him today, Alfred?

And every night for a year, Alfred had had to give the same answer. No, Master Bruce. Not today.

"Alfred," I said.

"Yes, sir?"

"What if they never catch him?"

Alfred sighed as he came to sit on the bed, "They may not ever catch him, Master Bruce. The police are doing everything they can, but sometimes criminals escape justice. It is not fair, but…"

"That will be all, Alfred."

I had never dismissed him that way. It did not even seem to be my voice. And while Alfred was somewhat startled, he instinctually responded to the unquestionable tone of command and left the room.

I sat there in the bed for a long time.

The police might not catch him. Alfred did not believe they would ever catch him.

Sometimes criminals escape justice.

Criminals. Thieves and murderers. Sometimes they got away.

That was not what my father had told me. Justice prevails, he'd said. I remembered because I didn't know the words and asked him what they meant. He'd said, That means the good guys win, Bruce. We have to believe the good guy wins, or what point is there to life?

But my father was the good guy. He was protecting his family. He was protecting me. And the man with the gun _The Gun. The eyes of the man with the Gun_. he was the bad guy. But he got away.

He's not supposed to get away.

I slipped off the bed and padded, bare-foot, down the wide dark hall and grand staircase, moving silently as a ghost. (Sometimes I felt like a ghost and I had dreams that the man with the Gun had killed me too and this life I had been living for a year, in the dream it was a dream, a dream of the dead. And when I woke I would feel the tears I could never shed choking me because what I had thought in the dream to be a nightmare turned out to be the truth.)

Outside, the night was so cold that the world seemed frozen and eerily still. I thought, rather remotely, that the icy ground burned like fire under my feet. I felt it, acutely, like walking on razor blades, each step. Strange but, the pain didn't seem to bother me. And I was outside, alone, in the middle of the night and it was so dark I couldn't see six feet in front of me. And I wasn't scared.

A thought moved slowly through my somnambulistic mind.

_I wonder if I'll ever be scared again._

My body kept moving. I did not think about where I was going. There was only one place.

The kiss of the cold wind stirred my hair and loose pajamas and made my fingers ache. I passed through the low iron gate and walked slowly past the heavy stone monuments that rose in dark shapes around me. Generations of my family, so many Waynes, all dead. I was the last one, the very last one, because everyone else was dead.

Less ornate than the older tombstones, two identical monuments stood side by side at the back of the graveyard. I hadn't come here since the day they were buried, but I saw the open graves every time I closed my eyes. Slowly I knelt between my mother's and my father's graves.

"He's not supposed to get away," I said. "It's not supposed to be this way. It's not…" my voice cracked, "it's not supposed…to be like this. How can it be like this?" I felt as if a steel band had closed around my chest; my breath was coming harder and harder, until I was gasping in the cold air. I wanted to scream, throw myself to the ground and scream and cry and lay down to die here on their graves. The darkness was closing in on me.

There was a rush of air above my head and, while I heard it, it did not really register in my brain until a thick cloud of flapping wings and high-pitched keening shrieks descended out of the night. I looked up, slowly, at the bats whizzing across the sky, wheeling and diving, snatching vermin out of the air and devouring it. One flew low and I saw it so clearly in the moonlight – its wings beating the air, its horrible face like that of a demon, its mouth open, hungry. It was coming straight at me, coming _for _me, coming to punish me, coming to save me.

If only there were someone to save me.

But there was no one. There was no one that night to save them. There was no one to save all the others, the ones who screamed and died tonight in Gotham City. There was no one to stop the thieves and murderers who prowled the streets tonight.

I closed my eyes tightly, covering my head with my arms. But it was _White pearls_. too late, the memories were coming, _The roar. Horrible, deafening noise_. I saw it all again, and again, just like it was happening right now, right here. _Slowly my parents fall. Their bodies hit the street_. I could feel myself trembling, a child alone in the night.

"No!" My fist struck the hard, frozen ground with every bit of my strength. "No, they can't just get away! Someone has to bring them to justice. If no one else can, then I will. Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do. I swear to you, I will."

Am I mad to think I can change the very nature of Gotham – of the world? Cloaked in the city's shadows, contemplating the streets below, I consider how impossible is the task I've set myself, but I cannot let it make a difference.

From the shattered pieces that were left in the wake of those gunshots, I have rebuilt myself the only way I could.


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

The sensor net has gathered enough data for me to track his movements specifically, so long as he sticks to the rooftops. I still can't match his speed or familiarity on the strange terrain, but with the sensors I can mostly keep up with him and stay out of his way. Tonight, he seems to have a very specific mission. I almost laugh when I realize where he's heading.

The boss said I couldn't interfere, so, orders are orders. I decide I want to see this close-up. Dropping from Batman's tail, I route around him, going to the street. Fagen doesn't know it, but I set up a backdoor into his computer system and with a palmtop remote I call up his own access code to get into the bank through the concealed executive entrance, move up to the second floor and set myself in a good spot on the mezzanine. I can hear the workers entering the lobby below. Peeking down I see a dozen men, four carrying the lockboxes, the other eight armed guards around them. The men moving across the space below, heading for the armored truck at the loading dock, were all complete professionals, cool, precise and competent. This is one of John's money laundering operations, no doubt there are bonds, gold or jewels in the boxes, somewhere in the tens of millions from the size of the them, heading off for Europe to run through an intricate system and come out the other end as squeaky clean cash.

I'd known from the start that Fagen hadn't told me everything. He never does. But I'm a bit surprised. Batman has put him together with Callas. He knows who he is after. This isn't something he could have just tipped to; he'd have had to be looking into Fagen's businesses and know what kind of thing John greases the wheels to make happen. This guy is actually gunning for John Fagen. Can you say cojones?

I force myself not to start as I hear the ornate skylight shatter and alarms begin to scream. I don't want to be too impressed, but as he falls, the cape billowing, a black anvil of coiled power, dropping past me, I can't help it. I see something fly from his hands, a swirling bola and small dark pellets. I hear a man choke and fall back, his shotgun now roped to his neck. Smoke hisses as he lands with the seeming ease of a panther, moving too quickly for me to see it all, black hands grapple and punch, powerful kicks sending one and then another flying. A gun, forced high by his forearm, goes off and two chandeliers explode; sparks showering the room. He never hesitates, leaping off one to launch himself at another. I've never seen such a large man move with such speed. I think of a panther again, brutal, quick, bestial.

I hope I never have to go hand-to-hand with him. I wouldn't have a chance in a straight fight. But then, I've always thought if it comes down to a straight fight, I haven't done my job.

The smoke begins to clear and I see him standing in the middle of scattered bodies, half already bound up and waiting for the police, I can hear the squad cars' sirens screaming over the bank's alarm system. He takes the time to blow open the two lockboxes and examine their contents. No doubt he knows that Fagen will make this look like an attempted robbery (I'd hate to be one of the poor saps hired for this job, I figure they have about two weeks to live now), and so he is not interested in the legal implications per se. He's looking for information.

An instant before the police cars pull up outside, he raises an arm to fire a grapple hook and is flying for the ceiling as the cops come pouring in. Only one of them even sees him, but only for a second.

I slip out the way I came in and head for the rooftops again, the display blinking in front of my eye – TRACKING… TRACKING… I wait, scanning the uneven horizon.

When I first started I had to consider the possibility that there was more than one guy in the suit. I'm certain it is a single man, now that I've had a chance to see him a few times. Same moves, same utter disregard for danger. There's no way they could have found two men with that kind of death wish.

Still nothing on the display, which means he must have gone to the car. I've had to revise my estimates of the bankroll behind this operation because of that damn car. I've only managed to get a look at it twice, but it appears to be the only true auto-motive I've ever seen in operation, though I've encountered a few prototypes in the last couple of years. It not only drives itself through the highly complicated environment of Gotham City without hitting anything or anybody, but it has the most sophisticated proximity system I've ever seen, or even heard of. Two nights ago, I had been just about to try to approach it when a couple of young toughs thought they'd show off to their friends by smashing the windshield of the Batmobile. They couldn't even get close to it. It moved itself if they approached closer than four feet, in any direction. And I do mean any. One finally tried to leap onto the roof and found himself eating pavement. Then it chased them around the block, which, frankly, was funny as hell. Building that, including R&D, had to cost at least a cool hundred to two hundred and fifty mil. I don't even want to think about the upkeep on it.

This is my problem. That kind of money can afford real secrecy which I am unlikely to be able to penetrate. And the irony is, I've got all kinds of information about what he does and who he does it to, and it is telling me nothing. Who benefits. That is always the way to find the real power behind any operation. Always. But, so far, the only ones I've seen benefit are the ones without power. The poor. The helpless. The veritable huddled masses.

I've set up an encrypted link to the police network, hospitals and newspapers to cross-reference every criminal he's ever been credited with bringing in, plus every hit I see him make, against FBI, DEA, ATF, NSA, even CIA, and every other initialed state and federal database there is, as well as Fagen's connections and his extensive records of his rivals' businesses in Gotham. I've tracked down who he busts up and who they work for dozens of times. But there's no link to any of Fagen's enemies. Only so many people have the resources to support this, and all seem to hate and fear him as much as Fagen does which is understandable; he goes after them all. They, like Fagen, are certain he must be a pawn of someone like them; that he has to be under someone's control somewhere.

And of course, he must be. There has to be a connection I'm missing. There has to be, because the alternative is impossible. He can't…he just cannot be what he seems. No one could do this alone. Even if they could, why? Why declare war against Gotham?

No, not against Gotham – for Gotham.

How crazy do you have to be to think you can frighten the demons out of Hell?


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

He has to know by now. He has to be feeling the heat. I hope he's sweating.

I don't kid myself though. He's not. None of the hits I've made have come close to threatening him in any real way. Even night before last. I knew going in there would be no way to prove the source of those diamonds, so the bank still has them, and Fagen will just move them out from another place at another time. I'm just an inconvenience to him right now.

And that is not enough.

It is only just evening and I work at the computer, waiting for night. I know what I need, and I know how unlikely it is that I will get it. But I keep searching. It doesn't matter how long it takes. With time, I will come to know him. Sooner or later I will find a way to get close to him.

I look up as an alarm begins to beep from the security systems. Frowning, I look to the display of the grounds that instantly appears on one of the side screens. Someone is moving along the outer wall not far from the gate. I punch up the camera. There is a dark car pulled to the side of the road, just before the turn into the drive. It is just dusk and the exterior lights have not yet come on, but the gathering darkness makes me unable to see more than a shadowed figure.

By the time I reach the wall, I can hear him on the other side, heading back towards the gate. Silently I follow, coming though the wrought iron door set in the wall, emerging behind…her.

"Who are you?"

She jumps and spins to face me. I keep my expression unchanged.

Marlowe DeSeve.

"God! You scared me! I'm sorry – I didn't mean to trespass. I'm … sightseeing…" she sounds unsure of the last word. Then she blinks, "Oh! We…didn't we meet? A couple of weeks ago – the fundraiser at the Mayor's…?" She seems embarrassed.

"I believe we did. Marlowe, wasn't it?"

She takes my proffered hand, blushing, "Marlowe DeSeve. And you must be…"

"Bruce Wayne."

Pulling her hand back to rake her fingers through her thick hair, she grins a little sheepishly at me, "I guess this will teach me to find out who someone is before I blow them off."

I smile easily and shrug. My thoughts are keen as razors. Keep her talking.

"I found it rather refreshing actually," I say, moving a little closer to her. "It was… interesting to be dealt with just as a man, instead of as a name."

She doesn't say anything to that, only looks at me. And though I cannot read her expression, her eyes are sharp, cutting through the twilight shadows gathering around me.

"What did you mean," I ask, "when you said you were sight seeing?"

Breaking her intense gaze, she glances over my shoulder and nods at the house behind me, "Wayne Manor. I haven't seen it since I was a kid." She stops, her eyes turning inward suddenly, and she seems to forget I am here for a moment. Then she closes her eyes for a second, sighing. Smiling wryly, she says, "If you want to know the truth, I really don't have any idea what I'm doing here."

Something…there's something beneath the surface…

I smile and take another step closer, "Well, there's nothing that says you have to have a reason for everything you do, is there?"

She glances up at me from under the wave of hair which has fallen back over her cheek.

A little grin is tugging at the corner of her lips. "No, I guess there isn't."

Hooked. Now reel her in. Carefully.

"If you wanted to see my house, all you had to do was ask. I'd be pleased to have you as my guest any time."

She laughs, ducking her head coyly. Her grin is wicked as she says, "I'd think you would be afraid I was some crazed stalker after this. Maybe it's not too smart to invite me in."

"Well, I don't think I'd mind being stalked by you."

"Then you are a brave man," she says, giving me an arch look.

I smile my most charming smile, "We should do this properly. Would you join me for dinner tomorrow night?"

Her eyes flicker over my shoulder, looking at the Manor and I catch a glimpse of fleeting emotions passing over her face before she looks down.

"I … shouldn't. My work…," she stopped. "I'm very busy right now."

Fear. I sense fear in her answer. Gently now.

I chuckle easily, "So, make it work. What do you do? If you sell something, I'll buy some. My business interests are far-ranging. I'm sure we could find a connection that would satisfy your employers."

"I doubt it," she says softly. And there it is again – fear. I can smell it on her.

Reaching out, I touch her arm. She starts and looks up at me.

"It's," she takes a deep breath, her eyes steady, "really not…a good idea."

"I've always believed a good idea is what you make of it," I say, smiling softly. "How bad can it be? And everyone deserves a few hours off now and then." I take her hand in mine, "You know you want to."

Her eyes narrow as her face takes on a knowing expression, "Oh, you're just so sure you can get whatever you want, aren't you, Bruce?"

I grin and give a small shrug. Her eyes flicker once more to the Manor behind me, and she makes her decision.

"What time?"

"Eight o'clock?"

She nods. "All right. I'll be here."

Without another word, she goes to her car and drives off. I stay and watch with a look of seemingly normal male interest in a lovely young woman.

This woman I was very interested in. It was not likely a man such as John Fagen would be tripped up by one of his women talking, I remind myself. Unless she was afraid…

This could be the bit of luck I've been needing. I may have finally found something I can use.


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

"What's the problem, Nocturne? I didn't expect this to take so long."

Not many people would be aware of what he's feeling, but I have begun to realize this situation is more serious to him than it seemed at first. I know he may really be in danger, and I can tell he's beginning to consider the possibility too. How I know what he's thinking, I'm not sure. It's nothing in his voice, or the way he moves – he's far too practiced at controlling himself. But I can still feel it with that simple sense that has always kept me alive.

I run it down for him. "Problem one – they've got enough money to protect themselves well. Problem two – as odd as it is, this whole Batman thing is brilliant. He's completely unconnected so there's nothing to trace between him and anyone else. Problem three – as far as I can tell the police are not being paid off. They don't all like him, but… it seems to have something to do with his alliance with that Captain Gordon. They're mostly willing to leave him alone because of it – the good cops, of course. The ones on the take would love to kill him. And problem four – he inspires real loyalty. I've talked to a dozen people on the streets – shopkeepers and bar owners, hookers and newsstand workers – the people no one pays attention to, but they see everything that happens on the street. He meets with them to get information. They not only don't know who he is, they don't want to know. They don't want him to be a man – they believe in the Dark Knight."

"What?"

"Some tabloid started calling him that, but lots of people on the street have picked it up."

Fagen shakes his head in disgust. "That's what you've come up with for his support system? Where's the money coming from?"

"Like I said. Nothing to trace. Yet."

He looks at me questioningly.

"I've reprogrammed my tracking system to recognize the car. Up till now I've not been able to track it. It's still spotty – difficult to follow with all the activity at street level. But I've been able to confirm that his base is not within the city itself, and I think I've found a way to at least get a sensor on the car, one small enough to get through its security system. That might get me the home base, wherever it is, or enough to find something on who built the car. And then I can find who paid for it."

"You can't get a tracker on a car? Or him? You haven't found a base of operations? I thought you were supposed to be one of the best black operatives we have."

"There's nobody I can't get to, given the time." Now, he's pissing me off. "From what you gave me I expected to find some pattern to lead me to the power behind him. But there isn't one. So, it's going to take a little longer. Don't push, John. If I step out of the shadows and this guy gets a bead on me – and he just might, he's very, very good – then it's all up and you'll have to start over. The kind of money he's working with…"

"Can't be hidden!" He almost shouts, but controls himself at the last moment.

"Yes, it can," I say calmly, "– if the money is not the important thing. Look, I think you need to consider the possibility that we are dealing with something out of the ordinary here. People not working from normal motivations."

"What are you talking about?"

"There is a kind of power play at work here – but it's not the one you think."

"Then what is it?" He is perfectly cool again.

"We may be dealing with some kind of, I don't know – fanatics. I can just feel it, everything about him. There is some very personal reason behind all this. Some belief. And it's not about making money or gaining political power."

"No one spends this kind of money on a operation if not to gain an advantage," he insists. "So, what are they gaining from it?"

"Well, what I think he's after is … justice."

Fagen frowns. "Justice? Are you starting to believe the tabloids too?"

I spread my hands, "Just telling you what I've found."

He shakes his head angrily, "No. That can't be it! Taking Callas out, coming after me; it leaves too much of an opportunity for someone else to take over whole sections of business in the city. And no one with the kind of money he has behind him would have a reason to do all this for…justice." He sounds scornful.

Good point.

I consider him for a moment, then say reasonably, "I think you should just let me take him out. It would give me his identity, plus whatever he has on him – which might be enough to lead to the money. Regardless, the powers that be would be hard pressed to replace him. This is no ordinary man. Trust me."

"I trust you," he growls. "What makes you think you can kill him? Bastard seems immortal. There are three multi-million dollar contracts on him and he's still alive. I also know of at least one bounty hunter, Richard Mosana no less, who quit the business after an encounter with him."

"Mosana?" I raise an eyebrow, but then I scoff. "I'm no bounty hunter. Has there ever been anybody I couldn't kill? I've been tailing him for two weeks. There were three times last night alone when I could have taken him down with a single shot."

He looks at me with that stare of…ownership. I realize how much I hate this man. Come on, you bloodthirsty bastard. Tell me I can just kill him and get the hell out of here.

"It might lead to the money. And it might not. I need information, Nocturne. I'm losing influence over this – can't control my own city. And he interferes nightly with half my interests in Gotham."

I can't help smiling though I know it will anger him, "I know. I've been watching him do it."

"I want it stopped. But I have to know who is responsible. It might not even be necessary to destroy them – in fact it would be a waste. Information. I need to know."

"That takes time, John."

"Time is a funny thing," he says, eyes so cold I truly wonder for a moment if he has a soul, "it has a way of running out on you. Am I making myself clear?"

Yeah, I get it already – it's me or Gotham. Guess who wins that toss up? "Of course. I will find what you need."


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

I had Alfred prepare the whole nine yards and then some. But I know impressing her with my willingness to spend money for the company of a woman will not be enough. I have to find a way to gain her trust.

So, I study her as we go through the pleasantries when she arrives. Her dress is a red so dark it is almost black, and it serves to enhance the effect of dark fire in her hair and eyes. She seems amused by Alfred, saying in a difficult to interpret tone, "A butler. How very Old World." And then she introduces herself to him, politely asking his name and shaking his hand. After this she steps from the foyer into the main hall, turning in a slow circle to take it all in.

Alfred gives me a subtle glance with a raised eyebrow, and withdraws to finish dinner.

"We have a little time before we eat. Would you like to see some of the Manor?" I ask as I approach her.

She looks over her shoulder, giving me that sly half-smile from under the wave of her hair, "Better just give me the nickel tour. It's all I can afford."

I take her around a few rooms on the first floor, leading her into the parlor.

"Have you been in Gotham long?"

"I just moved a couple of months ago, but it's already been too long." She makes a face, "I hate this city."

"Then what are you doing here?"

Moving to examine the painting over the fireplace, she replies, "Oh, I grew up here, and Gotham has a way of haunting you. It was probably inevitable that I'd end up back here. This is Boklin's _Isle of the Dead_, isn't it?"

"Yes," I move closer to her, but she can't take her eyes off the lonely island in the picture.

"I could have sworn I saw it at the Kuntsmuseum Basel just a few years ago."

"There are five versions of it, three in museums, two in private collections. What were you doing in Switzerland?"

Whatever it was, she's remembering it with an odd cynical smile on her face. "I was … entertaining a very wealthy nobleman for my employer," she says finally. She is still staring at the painting. "It's lovely, if a little sad," her voice becomes low, "It is a far, far better resting place I go to than I have ever known…" She quotes, then shakes herself and recovers her enigmatic smile, "Sorry. I don't mean to wax poetic. It must be the surroundings." As she passes her hand over her face I catch a glimpse of a struggle, a kind of tension, and I remember her fear from last night.

She hides it well though, smiling prettily at me, "So, tell me about 'stately Wayne Manor'."

"What would you like to know?" I ask while I usher her into the ballroom.

"Come on," she looks up to admire the crystal chandeliers, "this place has been here forever, since Gotham was a little coastal village. Surely there are stories. Got any ghosts?"

She says it playfully, but the question echoes in my mind.

"I don't know about ghosts," I say easily.

"Hey, are you related to Mad Anthony Wayne?"

"Yes, actually." I am suddenly aware that she has skillfully turned the conversation away from herself. "He was my great-granduncle, several times removed."

"So, does insanity run in the family?" she asks with a wicked grin.

"They say it skips a generation."

She laughs.

"Dinner should be almost ready." I offer her my arm and she takes it. As we climb the stairs, I tell her, "It's such a nice night, I had Alfred set us a table on the balcony."

We enter the second floor sitting room, where the tall French doors stand open to display a candlelit table. I pour two glasses of wine and we move to stand at the balustrade.

"So, what do you do for a living, Marlowe?"

She smiles, "Oh, this and that. Fundraising mostly."

"That must be interesting." I lean over to rest my forearms on the ledge.

"Not at all," she says lightly. Then she tilts her head slightly as she looks at me. She reaches over and slips a finger under the edge of my shirt where the top buttons are undone and it has fallen open a little. "That's some scar."

Sharp eyes. I glance down to where she's peering under the material, "Skiing accident about a year ago. I hit a tree doing about ten miles an hour. The stump of an old limb punctured my shoulder. Broke the collarbone and one of my legs."

She winces, "Ouch." As she slowly draws her hand back, her fingernails just brush the skin of my chest.

I smile, posturing a bit to make her think I'm trying to impress her, but her next words send a spark up my spine.

"It looks a little like the scar a bullet leaves," she says.

"Does it?" I lift the edge of my shirt and pretend to examine it. Then I frown and turn to her, "How do you know what that looks like?"

A slow smile curves her lips as her right leg appears through the slit in her skirt. Reaching down she pulls the material aside, turning a bit. Just below the V of the silky material is a spidery scar on the side of her leg where she had been shot through the thigh muscle. It's at least fifteen years old, meaning it had to have happened when she was perhaps twelve or thirteen.

I meet her eyes, which still look amused. "Oh, I've lived quite a life," she says, sliding her leg back and smoothing the material demurely.

"I guess you have."

Alfred arrives just then, with dinner. I hold her chair for her and seat myself as he goes about the presentation. I watch her. That's the advantage of playing a womanizer, I can observe her unhindered and it will be read as sexual interest. She handles it with perfect composure. She is tremendously skilled at being provocative. Mysterious and alluring, with no hint of obviousness about her. I've met a few professional women who work at the level of wealth that she must, and they have all had exactly this air. Referring to them as call girls or prostitutes never seems quite accurate. They are courtesans, and their profession is as much about entertaining a man with charm and conversation as with sex.

I would be completely sure that is what she is, but for one thing. Courtesans are always well heeled enough to afford the best. They don't stay in storefront lofts in bad neighborhoods. But then, that may have to do with the fear I still sense buried deep beneath her practiced façade. Perhaps she is hiding from someone.

She plays my eyes with hers like she is playing a harp, a pluck, then a trilling stroke. She raises her glass to take a sip, licking the dark wine from her lips.

As we eat, I try again. "What kind of fundraising do you do?"

"Political, mostly."

"Have you done any work for anyone I might know?"

"My firm has worked on the campaigns of Representatives Sharon Kelley and Drew Mostanowicz."

"Didn't I see you with Senator Fagen at the fundraiser?" I see nothing but the most off-hand reaction to Fagen's name.

Precisely nonchalant, she says, "You might have. I know John well. My firm was practically founded on his campaigns."

I watch her carefully, "He has always struck me as smart and capable, a good man."

She raises an eyebrow at me, "Good? Now there's a word I don't often hear applied to him."

"Really? Why not?"

She gives me a grin, "I work for politicians, Bruce. None of them are good people."

"So, what in Gotham has you so busy?"

I catch a flash of emotion passing over her face before she drops her eyes, "John asked me to work on … a couple of long-term projects for some friends of his." Sighing she lightly touches my hand where it rests on the table, "I'm sorry, but I'd really rather not talk about work if you don't mind."

"Why not? Don't you like what you do?"

"Like it? I…don't know. I'm good at it. I've never really done anything else," her voice has gone soft, and I see the struggle again. It is plain to me she is talking about her real work, not her cover story when she says, "It's just…" she shakes her head, "It's complicated…what I do."

"Complicated how?" I keep my tone casual, though I know I am close to something. She is – troubled.

She sighs suddenly, narrowing her eyes at me, and giving me a dangerous little smile, "What part of 'I don't want to talk about work' don't you understand, Bruce?"

Back off, or you'll lose her, "Well, what are we supposed to talk about?"

"We can talk about what you do," she suggests.

I laugh, "Me? I don't do anything."

"Except court famous, beautiful, wealthy women."

I lean in, still laughing lightly, "You shouldn't believe everything you hear."

"You mean you're not a shallow womanizer who lives to collect notches on his bedpost?" she asks, in an innocent tone.

With exaggerated offense, I respond, "Absolutely not. I am a deeply sensitive man looking for a soul-mate with whom to share my life."

She laughs, shaking her head. "Doesn't matter, either way." Then she runs her eyes over me in a searing glance, "And don't think it doesn't pain me to say it. You are definitely my type." Closing her eyes for the briefest second, she opens them to look at me, smiling kindly, "Besides, you seem like a fairly decent person. And I've come to realize recently, that I really – am not."

"Why don't you give me a chance to make that decision?"

"Okay," she laughs softly, looking at her watch. "I've got about another hour."

"Do you have another date tonight?"

Her laugh stops suddenly. She runs a hand over her face and through her hair, tilting her head back and searching the sky for a moment with her eyes. "I don't think you can call it that," and her voice holds a hint of pain.

Gently, I ask, "Do you want to tell me about it?"

She turns an indulgent smile on me, "No."

"You really don't make it very easy to get to know you."

She looks down to where her hand slowly turns her wine glass on the table. Glancing up, there is that wicked grin, "Be glad."

I raise an eyebrow at her. For all her mysterious evasions, she seems strangely honest in her reactions, and I can tell that I have managed to make some connection with her. Unfortunately, I don't know what it is.

"If I only have you for another hour, why don't you tell me the story of your life? I'm going to find out something about you before you leave."

She raises her glass to take a drink, grimacing slightly, "I don't know, Bruce. We just ate. How strong is your stomach?"

"I think I can take it."

"Well…I'll tell you part of it anyway. It's relevant to why I came here tonight. One thing though," and here she looks at me very seriously, "no pity. I don't do pity."

I look questioningly at her, but agree, "Okay."

"It works both ways. You'll see." She smiles, but is watching my reaction carefully as she begins, "I never knew my father, and I barely remember my mother, except that she drank a lot and wasn't real happy about having a kid. Then one night, she just didn't come home. I never did find out what happened to her. We lived in a walk-up tenement on the East End and the manager ran me off as soon as he figured out she was gone. I lived on the street for about a year."

I keep my voice carefully neutral, "How old were you?"

She shrugs, "About six."

I nod.

"I caught a bit of luck then and got taken in by…" she stops, smiling softly in remembrance, "by a fabulous old broad named Annie Karanolstikov, but we just called her Annie K." Grinning at me, she says, "Annie was a madam. She ran a house down on the East End. She let me earn a room." Then she laughs, "Oh, get that look off your face, Bruce. I didn't turn tricks when I was six years old. I did chores, cleaned up, did the laundry. You have to wash the sheets a lot." She throws extra emphasis on the last word, and laughs at me again. Leaning over, she runs a hand up my arm, giving my shoulder a playful squeeze, "I love bluebloods. So prim and proper. At least on the outside, right?" Still laughing softly, she sits back, taking another drink.

"You really have lived quite a life," I say. "How long did you stay there?"

"Several years, actually." She sets her glass down, "Annie was eventually killed by some gangs taking over the prostitution in the neighborhood. That was the night I got this…" she touches her leg absently.

She says it all as easily as I've had other women tell me about their ponies and birthday parties growing up. She says it in exactly the same way as they did, as if she expected me to understand completely.

"You wouldn't believe the characters that lived at Annie's place. I haven't thought about them in years…Annie, Kim, Marguerite, Cassie," she laughs. "Cassie was this two hundred pound Guatemalan who chain-smoked from waking to bed. She smoked while she ate, in the bathtub, while she tricked even, and she ate like you would not believe. She was only, maybe, five foot three, so she was almost as wide as she was tall. Had a real mother complex too. I don't remember how she ended up in Gotham, but she hooked so she could send money to her mom, who had her three kids back in Guatemala. She sort of acted out on me, since she missed them so much. She and Annie, they really took care of me..."

She rises suddenly and goes to stand at the balcony's railing, for a moment, looking out over the grounds. When she turns back, there is something different about her, about the set to her body and a strange twist to her mouth.

"You have to pardon me, Bruce. I'm," she stops and rubs her fingertips lightly between her closed eyes. She looks up, but not at me, "I'm having trouble these days."

Don't push. Let her tell what she wants to tell.

"I've become, I don't know…disconnected." Her voice is quiet, remote. "It's like I … don't know who I am all of a sudden. And I keep coming across these memories… I thought the bad ones were hard to take, but the good ones are unbearable."

I move to stand beside her, not too close. She turns to face me.

"This is all so bizarre," she says, just above a whisper, "being here."

"In Gotham?" I ask.

She shakes her head, laughing softly, but it has a sad sound to it, "No, being here," she turns her head to look around the balcony and the room beyond the open doors, up the towering walls of the Manor. She raises her eyes to mine, and she is smiling and frowning at the same time. Now her small laugh has an almost desperate sound to it. "How did I end up here, telling my secrets – to you?" Reaching up, she slides her fingertips lightly down the lapel of my jacket, and her eyes follow her hand. "The poor little rich boy," she says softly.

When she looks up I see a flicker of something… quickly masked. As her eyes become inscrutable again, she says to me, "What I was doing here last night was reliving a moment from my childhood. Many moments, really. I used to come here a lot when I was a kid, just to sit on the wall and look at the house. There was a tree not far from the front east corner…"

"Yes, it had to be cut down a few years ago. It had died."

She laughs a little, "It was kind of on its last legs back then." She turns to look at the spot she is describing. "Wayne Manor," she whispers, slowly brushing back a stray strand of hair the breeze has blown across her face.

Then she looks at me, "The first time I came here was the night after your parents were murdered."

My face does not change. I do not move. I do not even blink.

"I'd gone down to the corner that morning to get the paper and doughnuts for Cassie like I always did. I didn't pay any attention to the headline, but the whole place just went nuts when I got back and everyone saw it – 'Thomas and Martha Wayne Killed' – and the story about it happening in front of you."

No one has ever spoken to me of it so completely without… pity.

"The whole city was strange that day. People seemed to whisper a lot so noises were louder. Everyone sort of huddled together in groups out on the street, like they were… seeking protection. I was very bewildered by it all. It was like some fundamental law had been broken. If it could happen to the richest family in Gotham… It just didn't make sense. I kept hearing adults saying that over and over. And it frightened me because I had always believed that money was supposed to keep you safe. I simply couldn't stand that not to be true. All I'd ever wanted was to find a way – " She stops abruptly, then seems to force herself to go on in her previous casual tone.

"I got this idea that if I could just see you, I'd be able to figure it all out. You had lived, and I guess I thought you knew the secret." She shrugs. "Kid's logic. The article in the paper mentioned Wayne Manor and where it was, so I set out to come here. It took me all day; first on the subway, then the train. I had to walk the last part. By the time I got here, it was pitch-black night. Everything was so strange. I'd never been out of the inner city in my life, and it was so dark, and so quiet – no people anywhere. I finally got here, and climbed the tree and saw this house…" her voice has become hushed, almost reverent. "It looked like every light in the house was on, and the whole place was just shining, like a castle in a fairy tale. Except it was real. And I suddenly understood that you were real too. All those lights. I knew if I were you I wouldn't want to be alone in the dark. And it came to me suddenly that even though you lived in a castle and had everything I didn't, even though your life was the complete opposite of mine," her gaze had been growing in intensity as she spoke, until it seems to be spearing me. Her next words are like a knife. "You were just like me.

"I had come to learn a lesson, but it turned out to be one far different than I expected. If money wasn't safety, then…" her voice breaks and she stops, but does not look away for once. And I see it again, flashing behind her eyes, identifying it at last. She looks … hunted.

She clears her eyes with a small shake of her head, and she goes on in that same, soft remembering tone, "I used to come here when I needed to get away from the city. It was a kind of haven for me." She smiles just a little, dropping her eyes, "I saw you once, close to Christmas that same year. I always thought…you saw me too. I probably imagined it."

Silence falls. I cannot speak.

She looks up quickly and her eyes search my face. Her dark eyes…they seem to see right through me.

I know her.

Barely above a whisper, she says, "You still hold it so close?" Her hand reaches up.

I cannot move.

"_That's_ what it is about you…" Her fingertips touch my cheek.

My hand is wrapped around her wrist before even I know I have moved. I hear her gasp softly and her other hand flies up to try to push me away. Then she freezes and I am frozen too – our gazes locked in an instant that seems to last an eternity.

I _know_ her.

I see her eyes change, feel her fingernails score my skin as her hand clenches on my shirt. I hear a freight train and know it is my blood pounding in my ears.

My arms close around her as she pulls herself to me, and our lips meet. I am aware of nothing but softness and heat, her body against mine. I lift her almost off her feet. She is shaking in my embrace.

Suddenly, she rips herself away from me, holding me back. For an instant her eyes are unmasked – and she is terrified.

What have I done?

Too many thoughts spill through my mind at once – Fagen. Gotham. Who I am. Who am I?

She backs away from me, eyes wide, shaking her head.

"Marlowe…" I reach towards her.

"No!" she flinches away. I see the marks my fingers have left on her wrist, bruises beginning to form.

What have I done?

She turns, almost running, weaving around furniture, brushing past Alfred as he enters, nearly knocking the tray he carries from his hands.

And she is gone.

Alfred straightens the dessert dishes on the tray. I stand as she left me.

"Once again," Alfred says mildly, "my hopes for a future Mrs. Wayne are dashed."

I turn my head to look at him – and he almost takes a step back.

Before I can think of what it means that I can frighten even Alfred, I go to the cave.

* * *

A little girl alone in the dark. Sitting on the stone wall that surrounds the Manor, looking at it like it is some forbidden paradise.

I stand in the pitch darkness of the cave and though my eyes are blinded I can see her before me as clearly as I saw her that winter's night.

I had waited, as I always did, for Alfred to turn out the lights and retire to his room in the far wing of the Manor, before getting up to switch them back on. Going to the windows that looked out to the road, I stood watching the full moon rise over the snow-covered ground.

At first I thought I was imagining it, for what person could be out on such a brutal night as this? But then she had moved and I saw her clearly in the cold moonlight – a child, no older than myself, shivering as she curled up, hugging her knees to her chest.

What was she doing here? There were no houses for miles, no other children anywhere nearby. Didn't she have a family, someone, to wonder where she was?

But I knew as I looked at her that she did not.

That she was like me.

A sudden piercing pain shoots through me as I remember that realization – that there were others like me, others who'd had their lives shattered, others who suffered this crushing loneliness. Others … who had even less to fight with than I did.

That night I reached out to her, that tiny figure in the dark, pressing my hand to the cold glass. When she'd raised her hand in response and I knew she could see me too, there had come a moment when I had almost felt we were touching across that wide, cold distance. For one moment not alone.

Just one moment of grace.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

My security has been breached. Someone has put a sensor on the car. It is a clever device, small enough that it did not trigger the proximity system, and sophisticated enough that its signal almost passed for electrical interference. I discovered it, but it may well have been on the car all night. It is no simple homing device, though I am sure that is one of its functions. I have not deactivated it yet, though I am keeping it from reading anything significant. Whoever put it here is no doubt watching me right now, where I've pulled into an alley to try to pinpoint the destination of its signal.

Up. That is all I can tell, then it disperses and I lose it.

Slamming the car into reverse, I pull out of the alley and speed off, keeping one eye on how the signal changes, but it moves with me, always up, then – smeared.

I push two buttons, sending an electrical charge along the frame of the car, and the signal shorts out. My jaw clenches, as do my hands on the steering wheel. I knew he'd come after me, I just didn't think he'd get so close so quickly. I almost missed it. I had been about to head home…

I continue to drive, pushing the car with the turning and weaving to throw off any tail. I toss in a 180 on the bridge and satisfy myself that no one is following. Heading back into the city, I leave the car and go up.

What I find leaves me cold, cold and focused and perfectly clear. I should have realized… The sophistication of the sensors are that of state-of-the-art intelligence technology. Tiny microcomputers embedded in thin adhesive strips deployed to create a net across the city.

How long has someone been watching me?

And I know with that same arctic certainty that Fagen could have had me killed any time he wanted. An assassin could have me in his sights this very moment.

Quickly, but precisely, I remove one of the sensors and wire it into the palm computer, set one system to record the sensor's signal, while on another I bring up a worm program and search for a way to insert it into the system. Not quite a virus, this program would lock up the system without destroying it, then search for the master computer which I will be able to access through this sensor.

Until the worm does its work I am vulnerable on the rooftops, so I move immediately. As I touch down on the street, the computer signals me and I open it…to find a melted lump where the sensor had been.

Gritting my teeth, I call up the recorded signal and see if I have enough to do a search. There is, and I find no evidence of it in the surrounding airwaves. Since the sensor did not self-destruct immediately when I wired into it, it may have been a result of penetration by the worm into its programming. In which case, it may have taken out the whole net.

I travel a mile before returning to the rooftops to search for the signal again. Nothing. I search every inch of this roof, and the next, and the next before I find the sizzled, melted lump on an antenna.

It looks like I've bought myself some time; though I now have no connection to whoever has been tracking me. I have not thought enough about how Fagen would come at me, what he would use against me…He has at his disposal the FBI, the NSA, even the CIA, perhaps another agent on a 'leave of absence'.

Wilson Paul's computer disk had included a location for an undercover FBI field base downtown. I radio the car. At this time of night I expect, and find, only a couple of security personnel on duty. Compared to the sophistication of the sensor net, it is easy to get in, only basic magnetic contact locks, infrared motion sensors and cameras.

I go in through the basement, which is dark and cluttered enough to give me a chance to hook into the camera system and record empty rooms. I store the recordings so I can call them up as needed to cover my movements.

Looking around, I realize I'm in something a strategic operations center right here, one devoted to their investigation of me. They even have a photograph, though not much of one; I'm mostly a blur in it. There's an unusual custom-built computer center and I set to work on it. This is more like what I was expecting, tough, idiosyncratic security, at a level similar to the sensor net, but of a completely different character. Whoever has been on my tail is not Bureau, I'm almost certain.

It is well past dawn. I'm running out of time, can't get through. Voices. As quickly as possible I back out of the computer's systems, wiping away the traces of my presence as I go. They're at the door. I shut the computer down and melt into the shadows as the door opens.

"…know how we're supposed to feel good about this. You shouldn't serve a man, especially another cop, before breakfast." A woman's voice.

"I know, Cyn. But there's nothing we can do unless we can find out where the orders came from." A man, going straight to the computer. I move around the edges of the room. I glimpse them, a bulky man hunches over the keyboard while the woman stands at his shoulder, looking angry.

"We're running out of time!"

"Look, I don't want to see him go down. I think Gordon's a good man too."

Gordon? I feel my stomach go icy.

He continues, "But he's not making it easy for us. He has been breaking the law. He didn't even try to deny it."

She sighs heavily, "If this isn't just the most… insane… How did we get here, Tony? He _is _breaking the law – "

"Yeah, and it was working," Tony said quietly. "So, we're stuck. We can't just not do our jobs, but we can keep looking… into…" his voice trails off. I hear him punch several keys, each one fiercer and faster. "Who the hell," he sounds enraged suddenly, "has been on my machine?" He picks up the phone, dialing furiously. "Carter! What the fuck is going on? Who's been on my computer?" A pause. "Bullshit! Someone's been into my security system. Did you authorize this?" Pause. "I'm looking at the keystrokes file…"

Didn't have time to erase it.

The man is slowly lowering the phone, not hanging it up, just laying it on the desk. I can hear the tinny sounds of someone still speaking on the other end. I move to where I can see them better. He has his hand on the gun in his shoulder holster and is slowly standing, looking around. The woman is staring at him, ready, but not sure what he's worried about.

Then I hear him hiss, "He's been here."

Her eyes widen. He gestures, and they begin to move very quietly.

I have about ten seconds. They haven't actually drawn their weapons, but that's about the only thing I have going for me. They are too far apart for me to take them both at once but the close quarters may keep them from firing. I ready a batarang and approach the man. As I launch myself at his back, I loose the 'rang at the woman's head.

He's quick, rolling as we go down and though I get in a good blow to his head, he's already pushing up, throwing us onto our backs. The impact is intense, and the half-Nelson I have on him slips. He pounds my head with his fists as I wrap my other arm around his throat in a chokehold. I wonder about the woman, but cannot hear any movement. He's weakening and I manage to roll us back over. Two more seconds and he's out. I leap up…but the woman is down. Lucky shot; I hit her just right.

I'm out just as I hear feet pounding the stairs to the basement. I catch the car a block over. Broad daylight mocks me, reminding me of each and every mistake I've made in all this.

Gordon. What Fagen would use against me. I failed Jim by not telling him what I was doing and the danger it would bring. I listen to the police band to see if I can find out what exactly has happened, but can glean nothing. I try the morning news and there it is. Police Captain James Gordon indicted for abuse of authority and protection of illegal activity. My activity.

Fagen is closing in on me and I've made far too many mistakes.

Hard upon that thought is the image, the… sensation of Marlowe. I do not want to think of her. I do not want to use her again. Am I really any different than Fagen in that? How cold have I become? She had seemed to confess to me, though I did not understand all of it, while I…played my part and examined her for clues. I can't, I won't do that again.

But beneath this thought is the one I cannot let rise to the surface. That it was not my ability to lie to her that keeps me away, but the moment in which I could not, that moment when she saw me…

Like everything about her, the harder I try to push it away the stronger it becomes. Why did I lose control of myself like that?

I force myself to search these feelings, and I realize I have left myself vulnerable to this in my denial. Repression does not eliminate needs; it only allows them to intensify in darkness.

I can't. I cannot think of this anymore. Whatever I think I am feeling is unimportant. I don't want to use her, but I may have to. I'm running out of options.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

The apartment was unusually quiet, except for little James, the only one who did not know what was going on and so he gurgled and cried from the back bedroom like everything was normal.

Babs knew everything was far from normal, might not ever be normal again. She'd already had everything ripped apart once and it had finally come together again…

She pressed her forehead against the living room window, so she couldn't see his reflection anymore. She could barely stand to look at him right now as he sat at the kitchen table behind her, shoulders bent like he was carrying the weight of the world.

And wasn't he? First, there were all twelve million people in the city. Then he was trying so hard to fix things with Aunt Barbara and take care of the baby, and _then_ he'd taken her on. And he took better care of her than her father ever had. Even when he and…Mom (Mom, she reminded herself, I call him Dad, I should call her Mom) were having problems, she saw him trying to protect her from it. Not like her parents, who wouldn't let her escape their fights, even used her in them against each other. She missed them though, no matter what had happened, she couldn't help but miss them.

She closed her eyes. But it had all finally started to be …better, because of him.

Now he might go to jail. She wondered at just how – crazy – the whole world had to be that someone actually wanted to send _him_ to jail.

Her eyes opened and she looked down at the street ten floors below. Everybody looked so small, so far away. They didn't know he was sitting up here, suffering for all of them.

A bolt of lightning suddenly shot from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, and Barbara stiffened.

No, she thought. I imagined it.

There it was again!

From the corner of her eye, she'd seen a fluttering within the shadows outside the window.

She stayed perfectly still, moving only her eyes, concentrating. Oh. My. God!

_He_ was there. He was right there, outside the window. He was right there, not even a foot away from her!

Babs felt her heart pounding, and the adrenaline surge was so intense, her fingertips were tingling. She watched with a weird sort of surprise as her hands reached out and slowly pushed the window up.

_Please don't move, please don't move, please don't move..._

She rested her hands on the window sill, barely breathing. Not able to stand it another moment, she turned her head very quickly and for a second looked directly where she'd seen that little flutter.

But nothing was there except shadows.

Her face fell. Then her brow lowered stubbornly.

She kept her eyes fixed on the building across the street and, very quietly, so Dad couldn't hear her, said, "I know you're there."

Nothing but the remote sounds of car engines and horns from the street.

She surprised herself again with her next words. "You're going to fix this, right?" Her voice sounded so high and light, and she couldn't keep it from breaking. "I mean, you're not going to let them…" Her hands, she saw, were clenched tight on the sill, and she became aware that she was trembling. She could feel tears coming. "You're not going to let anything happen to him, are you?" she whispered.

Closing her eyes tight to try to keep the tears from falling, she thought, Now, I'm going crazy. Idiot. There's nobody –

Her eyes opened wide as she felt something touch her hand.

The black gloved hand covering hers was enormous, gigantic – HUGE. And she felt the fingers close gently around hers as she turned her hand to squeeze hard. It was like a rock! So strong… Barbara felt the fear pulled out of her, sucked right out through the connection between their hands, and a feeling of security seemed to flow out from that strong grasp, and just fill her up.

She smiled.

The hand drew back and she stole one more glance over, just catching a bit of movement along the ledge.

Turning, she walked over to her uncle, her Dad, and put her hand on his shoulder.

He looked up, and she was amazed at _his_ strength, because he smiled at her. "Hey, Babs." He put an arm loosely around her. "How are you doing?"

She looked into his eyes, "We're going to be fine, Dad."

Jim blinked at her. She said it like there was no question about it. Where had she come from? How had his brother (he bit back the old anger and guilt) managed to produce this extraordinary girl? As Barbara pulled away from him day after day, taking his son with her – there she was. Quiet, inquisitive, stubborn, so very much… like himself. And with her faith and her humor and, just her, she was making it all bearable to him. Some capricious power had worked a tragedy in the death of her parents and a miracle had resulted.

He pulled her to him. Swallowing hard, he said gruffly, "You bet we are, Babs." He closed his eyes, feeling her arms around his neck.

She turned her head and whispered in his ear, "There's someone here to see you." Kissing his cheek, she pulled back.

He was looking at her questioningly, and glanced at the door. No one had knocked.

She grinned and shook her head. "Outside," she said. Then she squeezed his shoulders, turned and headed off to her room like all was right with the world.

Outside? He looked over to where she'd been standing at the window, and he rose so quickly the chair screeched across the floor.

Peering down the hall after Babs with a look of wonder, he moved to the open window.

The voice came out of the shadows as he approached, "I won't let you go down for me, Jim."

Jim leaned against the sill, looking out. He was staying out of the light from the living room, just a dense black mass, a shadow within shadows.

Jim smiled a little, putting on a brave face, "I knew what I was doing. Don't do the crime, if you can't…" he stopped at the flinching movement he sensed more than saw.

"This is my fault. And I will not let it happen. I'll turn myself in if I can't find any other way."

Gordon sighed, "I know you would. But I don't know if you should."

"There is no question," and Jim could feel the implacable will behind his words. "You have," for a moment his voice was different, more – human, "people who can't do without you."

Gordon gave a small snort, gesturing out at the city, "And you don't?"

"It is not the same."

No, it's not, Jim thought. He didn't bother to wonder how he knew what the other man meant. Was he really that alone? With such a strange life how could he not be? Was what he did worth the sacrifice of Jim's family, already barely held together, God, Barbara could never raise two children on her own. The end of his marriage, Babs in state care, little James in poverty…

"It will not happen. No matter what I have to do."

Jim didn't see him move, but he knew he was gone. He'd said what he came to say.

He heard James begin to cry from the bedroom. How could he have risked his family, when he'd known it could come to this? There for a moment, it had all seemed to be working, and he'd really begun to believe…what? That Gotham could be changed? That there was hope, even in this city? That good could actually triumph over evil?

He laughed cynically at himself. And I always thought I was a realist.

Then why do I still believe?

* * *

Hearing his daughter plead with me to save her father was almost more than I could bear. Feeling her small hand clinging to mine, seeing that smile, the trust only a child can have, that only a child can give.

Am I going to make her an orphan again?

I stand on the edge of a rooftop and look out over the city, my city, and I think about my enemy. He's smart enough to not just send a single assassin to try to kill me. No, Fagen's been tracking me, getting to know me. And now he applies pressure by taking my one visible ally. Soon he will try to draw me into a situation from which I cannot escape.

I feel the power arrayed against me. Though I have slipped his net for the moment, he has snared Jim, and that I cannot allow.

No matter what I have to do.

* * *

John Fagen awoke with a start. Had he been having a strange dream? Running a hand over his face he looked around the large silent bedroom. He turned over, then decided he was thirsty, so he threw the sheet back and sat up. Yawning, he scratched his head and stood to move towards the bathroom.

Before he'd taken three steps iron bars locked around his chest. What felt like a steel clamp closed over his mouth. He was lifted off his feet as he thrashed and tried to scream. Terror possessed him as he was thrown down and his wide eyes could see nothing but a massive black shadow over him, on him, crushing him. He looked up into the eyes of a demon.

It spoke, "Power, Fagen," and its voice was the sound of an ancient tomb being opened. "You think you know power. You think you have power."

Oh god, he was going to die. _He_ was going to die.

"You think Gotham is yours to play with." The pressure on his face increased until he felt like his skull was going to burst. "I am Gotham's wrath."

The bedroom door slammed open.

"Freeze, moth – aaaaahhhh!" The first of the armed men into the room jerked backwards into two others.

Batman was already on them. A mass of tangled bodies hit the wall beside the door and a mirror crashed to the floor, shattering. Bullets ripped across the ceiling.

"Alive!" Fagen screamed. "I want him alive!"

A man flew across the room, skidding to a stop at Fagen's feet. A gun whizzed past his head, striking the bedside lamp, which exploded. Fagen cried out as shards struck his face.

When he looked up the black shadow stood alone over the downed bodies of his guards.

Cold fury filled John Fagen. No one touched him. No one violated his home this way. No one _dared._

Enunciating each word with vicious force, Fagen said, "This is over." He felt no fear. He could hear the pounding feet coming up the stairs, the shouts on the grounds outside the window. "You can't get away." He smiled. "Gotham, you see, is mine. It's wrath, its joy, its people, its wealth. _Mine!_"

Primal panic seized him though as the Batman came for him. He fell back trying to escape, but those black hands were on him, lifting him so he could only kick helplessly, pulling him close.

"NO MORE!"

He was flying through the air, slamming into the bodies of the second wave of bodyguards, bowling them over. Batman was gone.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

I've never seen him like this. Never.

"Where were you, Nocturne?" He is screaming at me, red-faced, trembling with rage. "He was here, in my house! In my bedroom!"

I don't know why I don't feel fear, why I don't feel anything as I watch him pace the room, as if he's looking for something to smash. There are two large gauze pads taped to his face and his wrist is wrapped. He has never been under this kind of attack. The Bat just got up close and personal, and Fagen, who has always been so skilled at ordering other people into the line of fire, simply does not know how to handle this.

"You didn't even warn me! He could have killed me."

He says it like it means breaking a law of physics. Yes, John. You too can be killed. How do you like that thought?

"This is over." He turns to me. "You bring him to me. Immediately."

How can I be so calm?

"I can't do that, John. Not immediately."

The look on his face is one of such surprise it is almost comical.

"What?" he roars.

Why am I so cold? "Before he came here last night, he dumped my surveillance. All of it."

His face goes hard in an instant. "That's too bad, Nocturne." He looks me over slowly. Then he turns and goes to the phone on his desk. "You were a good agent once. An agent I have invested a lot of time and money and trust in. Apparently that was all a waste."

Numb, I watch him, and he seems to move in slow motion. This is it. His hand is lifting the receiver. Idly I note the room's exits, escape strategies ticking off in my head by rote, by habit. Even though I know that if I managed to make it out of the building, off the grounds, out of Gotham, John would have me hunted to the ends of the Earth.

Survive. It is all I know how to do.

But I feel myself fracturing, splitting right down the middle as I speak.

"There is one way." He stops, fingers hovering over the numbers. "Create a situation he can't stay away from. Something with…innocent people, trapped, hostages. Maybe bombs."

"He'll know it's a trap."

My eyes close for a second, "Make it bad enough and it won't matter." I look at him. "Children."

What have I become?

"He'll come. And I will bring him to you."

He puts the phone down, but it is a long moment before he answers. "All right, I can arrange that." Those frigid eyes pin me. "This is your last chance, Nocturne. Fail me this time, and you are gone."

I have always thought, all these years, that I had somehow come far from what I had been. But in this instant I know my life has never been anything but this.

"Yes, sir."

* * *

I no longer have a choice. I consider going in the mask, but I cannot bring myself to use fear in this encounter. I don't want to use her. But she is all I have left.

I see the blinds move when I knock and it is several minutes before she comes down.

Opening the door, she steps out onto the sidewalk and pulls it closed behind her.

"What are you doing here?" her voice is carefully controlled but her eyes search my face, and all that before seemed so deeply buried; I can feel it, close to the surface.

It is difficult for me to begin. "I wanted to see you. To apologize. I overstepped my bounds the other night. I didn't mean to…"

A frown flickers over her brow and her black eyes go sharp. She repeats slowly and carefully, "What are you doing here?" Taking a step closer to me, her voice is soft, but her eyes unsparing, "What is your interest in me, Bruce?"

"I was worried about you. The way you left. You seemed so frightened."

She blinks and looks at me like I just slapped her face. Her eyes are wide, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths.

I reach to put my hand on her arm, "Marlowe, what's wrong?"

She tries to take a step back, but I move with her, keeping my gentle grip on her arm. Turning, she ends up backed against the store window. She won't look at me. Her face is cut and stark in the harsh streetlight, my shadow falling over her.

"What is it?"

She shakes her head slowly and her voice is low, "You don't know what you're asking."

"Whatever it is, you can tell me. Let me help you."

"Stop it!" She looks up, and her eyes are a window onto a desolate midnight street. "Who are you?" Her eyes close tight as she turns her head away. "Why are you doing this?" she whispers. She sounds as if she cannot bear the thought that someone would care what happens to her.

"Because I can tell you're in trouble."

She starts to laugh quietly, but the gaze she raises to me is cold and humorless. Her hand moves, reaching up, touching my face.

"Bruce…" her voice is full of grief, " I am in trouble. I…" Slowly, softly, her fingertips slide from my jaw, down my throat. I catch her hand in mine.

"You can tell me, Marlowe. You can trust me."

She says quietly, "It is not a matter of trust."

"If someone is trying to hurt you, if you've done something wrong, just tell me and I'll…" Her expression is so devoid of hope, it freezes the words in my throat.

"There are some things even money can't take care of. There's nothing you can do. I'm… trapped." In her eyes I see that hunted look.

My hands touches her shoulder, the hair against her neck, "What are you so afraid of?"

Her eyes close at my touch. She whispers, "Gotham." Her voice trembles, "Myself." So softly I can barely hear her, she says, "I'm nothing but a ghost." Suddenly she looks up at me, her dark eyes desperate, "But somehow… you see me." Her hands touch my arms, sliding up to my shoulders. Her fingernails suddenly bite into my shoulders. "Are you real?" The question is urgently spoken. She is staring at me, holding onto me like I am the only solid thing in a world gone mad.

I feel my hands touch her waist, the small of her back, though I did not will them to move. I hear my voice, low in my own ears, "I'm real, Marlowe."

Her eyes are bright with unshed tears. Her lips are trembling, "Am I?"

My eyes close at the feel of her lips, her body. She molds herself to me like molten metal. Her fingers bite into the back of my neck, and I feel my control tear apart, feel it ripping right down the center of my body. This desperate moment seems outside of time, only she and I exist, she… and I am falling into her, falling…

"No," I pull away. She tries to follow, but I hold her back. "This isn't…why I came." Why did I come here? Fagen. Fagen has me…

"Please?" Somehow the length of her body is against me again, her cheek touching mine, her breath caressing my ear. "I don't have much time left, and I'm so tired of … being invisible." Her silken hair on my face, the scent of it. She pulls back to look at me, softly pleading, "Please, Bruce? Couldn't I have just one moment?"

One … moment…

"I can't." Fagen. "But I can help," now my voice comes near to shaking. She has to believe me. "If you will just let me, I _can_ help you. All you have to do is tell me - "

Her face twists. "No!" She pushes me away. "You don't understand!" Something has snapped, her eyes are wild. "You don't know… who I am, what I am." When I reach toward her, she jerks back, "Don't touch me!" Then her voice drops and she looks down, "Don't…"

Slowly, she straightens and raises her eyes. They are cold, deadly cold, as are her words, "Go away, Bruce. Just go." Her gaze does not waver. "Please."

Are you real? Am I?

I have no choice. I turn away from her.

* * *

Gotham.

I walk Gotham's streets and I remember.

I remember being a child on these streets, being nothing, terrified every moment, running, hiding, starving, helpless. The smells, I remember all of these smells, filth, waste, fear and violence. I remember kindness, feeling protected for a blissful moment, and having that ripped apart, feeling myself ripped apart by vicious strength, brutal, hard, hurting hunger.

They left me for dead that night. But I did not die. I should have died then. I wish I had died.

Then I would not have to be what I am.

My legs feel weak, but I force myself to keep walking. I stumble and have to lean against the corner of a building for a moment. I almost double over as a wave of nausea twists my stomach. I taste bile in my mouth. How can this be happening here? How in Gotham, in _Gotham,_ where no one escapes, where even he did not escape, could he look at me and say, let me help you? Couldn't he see what I am?

I hear a desperate cry, a helpless shriek of despair, of pain. I can barely lift my head. But my body moves toward the sound. I look into the alley on the other side of the building. Two of the four men standing over the fallen girl see me.

One laughs, "Must be our lucky night."

The girl cowers, helpless, hopeless, in her eyes I see the resignation. She is weak, they are strong, whatever pain and violation she has to take, she will, if she can only survive.

I take a halting step towards them. Three of them come for me and I am frozen as their hands seize me, pulling me into the shadows. I do not resist as they push me against the wall, one's sweaty body pressing on me, and they release my arms.

But… I am no longer weak.

My hands come together with stunning force over his ears. He shrieks and reaches up. My fist cracks his collarbone in half and he falls back. Ducking a blow from the one on my right, I hear his fist strike the brick where my head had been. He doubles as my knee drives into his stomach. Holding his shoulders, I ram him down on my knee again, and again, and… The one to my left wraps his arms around me, pinning my arms. Holding his stomach, spitting, screaming in fury, the other lands a blow on my face. The one holding me tosses me down beside the girl. The one who had been on her jumps to his feet.

I hit the asphalt. My head aches and I taste blood.

My eyes meet the girl's. Hers widen and I say, "Run."

One bends to grab my hair. I shove up hard, my elbow connecting with his nose, which crunches loudly. My leg lashes out, smashing into another's knee. Spinning as I come up, my clasped fists take one across the face and he strikes the one beside him, who stumbles as he tries to hold the other up.

"Run!" I shout at her, ducking a punch and kicking one of the men back. If they close on me… I strike one in the kidney, crunch my knee into another's groin. I hear her scramble up. Her feet pound the street. A vicious punch snaps my head back, sending me stumbling. Hands pin my arms. I use their support to slash out with both legs, sending the one before me smashing into the wall. I come down solidly planted and bend, tossing the one holding me over my back. I stomp on his head.

Hearing a wild cry, I turn and am seized in a back crunching hold. My teeth sink into his neck. He yells and jerks back. I drive a hook punch up under his ribs and he retches. A double-fisted strike to his face sends him staggering back against the wall, his head hitting the brick with a dull, squishy thud. I keep him from falling, locking a hand in his stringy hair, wet with blood, and my other arm coils back. His trachea stands out in his arched throat, ready to be crushed in a killing blow.

A hand seizes my bent arm below the elbow and I spin, my free hand turning up, ready to drive the butt of my palm into my attacker's face. The black hand is so fast, I don't even see it catch my wrist, freezing my arm in mid-strike. The man behind me hits the ground.

My breath rushes out of me like I've just taken a blow to the stomach as I look up into the masked face. The moment seems to stretch, each heartbeat pulling it tighter and tighter. I can feel his hands on my flesh, his fingers like steel bands. I can see his eyes. And his eyes see me.

My legs buckle and I sway in his grip. Reality is tearing right out from under me. Everything is turning inside out and I can't…I can't…

My voice is low and strange, "I am…what Gotham made me." My face is cold, and wet. "You are what Gotham made you. How…"

His hands release me like my flesh has burned him. His eyes, his eyes… I am shivering. I feel dizzy, weak, I can't take his eyes seeing me.

And when I look up an instant later, he is gone.

My body goes nerveless and I fall to my knees on the street. Stripped of feeling, I wrap my arms around my shuddering body.

Gotham – I never meant to return here, never to remember what it was to be helpless, preyed upon, innocent, like so many are here. Never to remember how I was before I was…this.

What choice did I have with the lessons the city taught me? Take what you can get, never show weakness, always be ready to kill, or you're dead. You're dead.

I look up. The building walls tower over me. So alive and alone. I feel my heart beating. What do I live for?

My soul answers with silence.

Gotham made us both, but instead of running away from this god-forsaken city, he has become the god that would not forsake it. He has seen me for what I am and, rightfully, he has damned me for it.

I am Fallen.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

She had seemed to break down when I left her, as if my offer to help had destroyed her. She walked quickly away from me, moving blindly and I knew I couldn't let her…not in the state she was in. It was too dangerous here. Taking only the time to change, I followed her from above, my mind relentless, certain of only one thing, that she was afraid for her life.

She stumbled and fell against a building like she'd been shot. For a moment I thought she was going to collapse, then there had come a cry. I reached the alley as she did, and I saw them take her. Just as I had been about to move she – exploded. She was more than well trained at hand-to-hand; she was merciless. Silent, vicious and efficient. Lethal. I had to stop her from killing that man with her bare hands.

I bite back on my fury, no time for self-recriminations right now, no time to regret being naïve enough to have begun to …care about her. I hesitated to use her, the thought begins hard, then wavers. But her fear was so real. Or was it?

No time, no time. I have to get control of myself, torn between these feelings I am useless. Think! What do I know about her?

Her identity is a lie. She has the skill of an assassin. She works for John Fagen and she has gotten close to me. She has gotten close to me, because…

She is the child I saw, so long ago. That could not have been a lie.

Against my will, my eyes close tight for a moment, as I struggle to gain command of myself. It doesn't make sense! If Fagen sent her after me as Bruce Wayne, then he knows who I am, and I would be dead. I look down and she is still there, on her knees in the street, clutching herself with her arms. Her face is turned up. She had turned that tear-stained face to me…

You are what Gotham made you, she had said, and the words had burned right through me. In that instant I had been certain that she knew who I was.

But now, as I watch her, I am sure of nothing.

The building beneath my feet rumbles suddenly and there is a strange hot blast of wind. I recognize it as the concussive force of a massive explosion. I turn.

Six miles away, I see flames lick the sky. It is in a densely populated area of the city, high-rise apartments. Families. Rage shakes me. Fagen…

* * *

The building is destroyed, half of it blown away. The bombers sent a warning and the building was evacuated. But the ransom demand had come with the threat that three more apartment buildings in the city were wired to blow, no way to know which ones. They gave the city two hours to come up with the money.

I have to piece this together from intercepted police communication. I think of the pain Jim must be feeling right now, barred from service due to his indictment, and I regret that as much as the absence of my ally. Fagen. I know this is his doing. I know it is a trap, and a good one, for I cannot stay out of it.

My suspicions are confirmed when the police pinpoint the bombers' location with far too much ease. They are well-placed in an easily defensible dock warehouse, with quick access to both air and water escape. They have good surveillance on the surrounding area, and they've promised to explode another building if the police approach. The authorities are planning to go along, and attempt to follow them when they run. But those bombs are Fagen's insurance. If I do not appear by the time the city delivers the money, they'll blow a building full of people to ensure that I follow. He probably knows that I would figure this out. So it will be in the warehouse that the trap will be set. That I see no sign of security comparable to the sensor net concerns me. It means I've missed something.

I create a decoy signal for the pressure/ sound sensors on the roof, and turn the real ones off. Then I move to the air system to climb into a duct. Crawling down silently, I remove a panel and let myself down onto one of the broad beams crossing the two-story high interior.

Below me are six men. Serious mercenaries, dangerous, brutal men. Four are playing a game of cards. One is monitoring the security systems, the last is sitting beside a desk on which lies the detonator. There are two guns on the card table, and all of the men wear shoulder holsters. They are quiet, alert and cool. They will not scare easily.

So I search and listen; I have forty-two minutes until their deadline. Time enough to set a trap or two of my own. In twenty minutes, I am ready.

From a shadowed corner near the ceiling I simultaneously release the magnet I set over the detonator, shooting down on its thin wire, and the spring loaded batarangs. The magnet snags the heavy metal box. Men fly out of their chairs. The wire retracts and I rise, my shadow falling over them as I swing down, striking two just coming to their feet. I land, turn and spring away as bullets rip the air where I was. I blow the charges I set on the lights, plunging the warehouse into darkness cut only by high feeble squares of light spilling in from the street.

I leap and seize the nearest man, dislocating his shoulder as I disarm him and spin him to the ground. I come down on his back, elbow driving into his spine at the base of his neck.

A thick arm locks around my throat and I drive my head back, once, twice, his grip loosens. Bullets graze my chest as I force us back. His hands grapple with my arms. I slip his grasp and turn – and am tackled around the mid-section from the side. I jump with the force of it, propelling us laterally far enough for me to turn, so when we land he takes the brunt of it.

And in the instant before I move I see the dangling detonator twitch, and fall. Leaping to my feet, I dive to get under it but I am intercepted by a line of gunfire that forces me to jump, somersaulting. In the blur of motion as I come around and land, rooted, I sense more than see the dark figure dart across, under the falling detonator. But two of the men are closing on me, guns raised. I launch myself low at the nearest. Hot lead catches my cape as I take him down, rolling over and up, a bolo flying from my hand, wrapping the last one's hand, the weights on the ends striking his arm hard enough to paralyze it, and I am on him.

As he flies to crash into the table and slump, unconscious, to the floor, I turn, scanning the shadows. Moving carefully, silently, stepping over the bodies of the mercenaries, all six accounted for, I circle in the direction I saw that dark figure take.

But as I approach the massive support beam, a slim figure in a form fitting black suit steps out from behind it, detonator in hand…

Marlowe.

The violence of the wrath I feel wrings the breath out of me, sucking my reason away with it.

"No!" she shouts as I spring at her and she leaps to the side. I turn in mid-air, snatching her ankle and we go down together. She brings her free leg down, smashing her heel into my wrist. The blow is well-aimed and numbs my fingers for the instant she needs to curl and roll to her feet. But I am up as well.

"Wait!" she holds up the detonator, "I can stop…"

I leap, she spins, but there is no chance she's getting away from me this time. As I take her down with a single blow to the back of the head, the detonator skitters across the floor. She is not quite out, head rolling, only the whites of her eyes showing beneath slitted lids. I bind her arms and legs quickly.

No time. No time. Five minutes until the bombs go. I'll deal with her… I let the thought go as I reach for the detonator. Focus. No time.

Carefully, I disassemble the casing and examine the timer, the trigger and the transceiver. It is interruption of the signal that detonates the bombs. If I can get around the timer, keep the signal live, they won't go off, and the police can trace the signal to the bombs.

Four minutes.

I go into the timer's security programming.

Three minutes.

Unlocking the encryption, I go over the inner system. There are separate controls for each of the three bombs.

One minute.

I reprogram the timer, putting it in a dormant mode so it can no longer trigger detonation.

Thirteen seconds to spare.

Now. Marlowe. I look to where I left her. But there are only ropes, cut and empty, lying on the floor.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

I watch her through the window while I wait for the computer to decrypt the complex EM signal she has for security. It is taking every ounce of my will to remain cold. I had been right here before and I hadn't seen it. Of course, her system is of a nearly unbelievable level, microthin electromagnetic contacts hidden inside the old-fashioned metal lock. Why hadn't I searched her apartment earlier, as soon as I knew…

My fist clenches. As soon as I knew who she was. But I have never known that. I failed to see her when she was right before me, all because of that one deadly, distracting detail, the only thing I know to be true about her. Strangely, a line of Shakespeare runs through my mind.

_I am Fortune's fool._

The despairing fury threatens to sweep me, but I force myself to keep control. Fate has cheated me again, that Fagen could have found this one woman who had everything she needed to penetrate me.

She moves from where she was working over the CPU of a computer, picking up the .45 on the table and checking the magazine. All of her movements are quick, hurried. She drops the gun on the coffee table next to the other supplies she has gathered and moves to the bedroom.

I deactivate her security and silently open the window. Slipping into the room, I set myself to the side of the doorway in the shadows. She is at the door, but I do not move.

She passes. And stops in the center of the room, going perfectly still in an instant.

"Who are you?" At the sound of my voice, she turns slowly to look at me. Her dark eyes are wide, not with fear exactly, not fear…

"I'm …" suddenly her face twists like someone is ripping a knife down her back. Eyes shut tight, the muscles in her jaw work, and her fists are clenched so hard the knuckles stand out, white and strained.

Finally she looks up, and her gaze is merciless, "I am Nocturne. I'm a black operative."

"CIA."

She gives a short, hard laugh, "Not a spook. What I am is called a ghost. I don't exist so I can work for whoever needs me – CIA, NSA, military intelligence. I've even been loaned out to other countries. And sometimes I get assignments from individuals."

"Fagen." She feels the cold fury in my voice. I can see it. She knows the danger she is facing, but she holds back her fear and meets the weight of my angry gaze.

"He brought me here to eliminate you as a threat to him."

"You've been following me."

"Yes."

"You blew up that building."

"I…" she passes a hand over her face. I see it tremble ever so slightly. "I didn't push the button on the detonator but, " her voice breaks and she looks away. "I told Fagen to do it. To draw you out. So I could take you," she raises her eyes to me. Eyes full of such pain, like her soul is being torn from her body.

She could win an Oscar.

"Why are you telling me this?" She may be stalling. She knows who I am but I can't know when she put it all together, I can't be sure if Fagen already knows. If he does, then she is holding me here. The Manor. Alfred.

Softly, she says, "Because I cannot be what I was anymore."

Something snaps inside me.

I am on her in an instant, forcing her against the window, pinning her, crushing her. "No more lies! Her face has gone white, but it is the only change. "You'll say anything!" She does not resist. She does not make a sound, and my desperate rage is loud in my own ears. She has driven me near to madness, so perfectly tuned is her story to play upon me, and that is what she is doing – playing with me. "Do you think I would listen to you now?" My hands are clamped on her arms so tightly they are shaking. I snap her body and her head strikes the window with such force the glass cracks. "Do you think I am such a fool I would _still_ let you manipulate me?"

She looks stunned, but not from the blow.

Her brow trembles as her eyes go sharp, go deep, searching me. "Still?" she whispers.

In an instant I see more than I can absorb flash in her eyes, but what is left at the end I recognize all too keenly. Grief.

Her body seems to crumple under my hands as my grip goes nerveless. A low sound, a tearing sound, comes from her. She is shaking her head, eyes closed. Suddenly she pushes me back and turns. Before I can move, "NO!" her hand smashes through the window pane. Glass shatters. I hear pieces strike the street outside, small, high-pitched sounds, like tiny bells.

She faces me, but her eyes are closed, her face twisted. Her hands close into fists and she doesn't seem to notice as blood runs slowly down her arm and drips to the floor.

She raises her dark eyes to mine. Her voice is quiet and sad, "You won't believe me, but I've told you the truth. I grew up on these streets. I never thought there could be such a thing as hope in Gotham. Do you think I could let that be destroyed?" Her voice is thick with shame, "I was just going to run , but now…" she looks up at me, and it is a long moment before she continues. "I can finish Fagen, but you will have to let me go to do it."

"You're lying." She hasn't told Fagen yet, and she's playing me to get away. That's what all of this elaborate act is for.

She won't give up, "Please, if you could just trust me." Her body is rigid, brittle with tension. "I know you have no reason to, but if you could…" she seems to search for words. Then she looks up at me and her voice is ragged, "I swear to you – on this city that took your parents' lives - "

Black rage engulfs me and she sees it, stiffening, breath leaving her as I take one abortive step towards her. My hands are shaking. If I touch her right now I will rip her apart.

"_Mistake_." The black ice of my voice slashes through her eyes as she plays her part to the bitter end. Her head bows and she stands silent. Defeated. Without a sound, she raises her arms to me, wrists together, offering her surrender. Drops of blood, like red pearls, fall slowly…

In the instant I hesitate, the fingers of her one hand touch the watch on her wrist and a fine mist hits my face.

The world goes dark.

* * *

The fire trucks rouse me. I turn over in the alley, sitting up and gripping my head. Rising unsteadily, I move to where I can see the flames licking the bricks of her apartment building, eating up every last trace of her.

She has gone to Fagen


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Part Three: SANCTUARY

_"I am standing up at _

_The water's edge in my dream._

_I cannot make a single sound_

_As you scream._

_It can't be that cold,_

_The ground is still warm to touch._

_We touch._

_This place is so quiet_

_Sensing that storm."_

- Peter Gabriel

Chapter Seventeen

It was generally difficult to interpret Master Bruce's tone of voice, Alfred thought. But there was something terse in this message, even for him.

"Meet me in the cave in five minutes," and the radio had clicked off.

He knew about the bombers of course, and had followed it on both the police band and the television. He knew Batman had foiled the criminals, who were now in police custody. Not that he expected this to satisfy Bruce under the current circumstances, not now that James Gordon was at stake.

Alfred collected himself as he heard the low roar of the car approaching. First, he would tend to Master Bruce's immediate needs, and later he would let himself feel the fear.

Bruce was out of the car almost before it stopped, pulling the cowl back as he moved to stand before the older man.

"Alfred…"

And the sound of his voice sent Alfred's blood cold with dread. He looked up but Bruce's face was still cast in shadow so that he could not see his expression. Keeping himself straight and solid, he waited.

"John Fagen knows who I am. He will probably be sending someone, maybe FBI, maybe worse, soon." Bruce's voice was now deadly calm. "I can't sit here and wait for him to come for me."

Alfred took a step towards him, "If it is fighting to the last you wish to do, Master Bruce, you must allow me to do the same."

"No!" And Alfred Pennyworth used every ounce of his will not to show how deeply the raggedness of Bruce's voice struck him. "I can't have anyone else pay for my mistakes." At last he stepped forward, into the light. Alfred searched his face for anything, any spark of emotion he could grab onto and try to pull Bruce back. Something to let him see there were other options, but he found nothing except the iron resolve he had learned long ago would never give way.

Bruce spoke quietly, but with force, "We already agreed about this, Alfred, when I began." He put his hand on Alfred's shoulder. In the moment of silence that fell, Alfred felt that strong hand shake ever so slightly. "Please. I don't know if I can save Jim Gordon. I don't know if I can save myself. I can't… You have to go. As soon as they come. Set the self-destructs and go. The safehouse in Switzerland will still be secure."

"We can both go now, Master Bruce. You can find a way to start over…" But it was no use.

"I have to try. For Jim. I can't leave him to Fagen's mercies when this is all my fault. I did everything wrong." He turned away quickly and went to the computer. "I have to prepare. I need you to prep the plane."

"Bruce, tell me what has happened."

"There's no time! She's already gone to Fagen!"

"She?"

"Marlowe…" Alfred felt a deep, strange shock at the anger and agony in Bruce's voice when he said her name.

But of course he wouldn't show it. He kept his voice calm. He must provide an anchor. "The young lady you had to dinner? How did she discover your identity?"

Bruce slammed his fist down on the desktop and, though it was built to take such a pounding, the braces holding the legs in place creaked loudly. But then, he stood still, head down, body rigid with rage.

"I don't know," Alfred stiffened. He knew that tone, unrelenting condemnation of himself. "It's the one thing I can't make sense of. How she knew, when she knew, how I didn't see… what she was." His low voice shook, "I kept wanting to believe her." The muscles in his jaw locked and he punched button fiercely, bringing up schematics of Fagen's two homes. Quietly, angrily, he said, "She played me for a fool."

Alfred had known the night she left, flying from the room, leaving that look in Bruce's steel blue eyes, that something… unexpected had happened. And he'd seen for an instant in those eyes, the shattered little boy, the core of Bruce so rarely revealed. If she had done that with a lie…

"The plane, Alfred. There isn't much time."

"Yes, sir. I shall have it ready in twenty minutes."

And in the way of soldiers, Alfred did his duty, carefully performing all the checks on the machinery as Master Bruce did the same for the helicopter. The one regret he let touch him was that, in work, those precious minutes passed with painful speed.

They faced each other, and clasped hands. Alfred put his other hand on Bruce's arm. His voice he finally could not control, and it was thick with emotion when he spoke, "Please be careful."

Bruce nodded, pulled the cowl into place, and left.

Alfred turned, went to the computers and began setting the self-destruct sequence as the plane and chopper both roared to life and lifted off. He then called up all the exterior security on the Manor and the cave to watch for any sign of approach. Next he activated every tracking system on the plane and helicopter, bringing up their remote operating systems on stand-by. Finally he turned on the tiny microphone he had personally installed on the utility belt.

He would go, leaving Wayne Manor a blazing hulk if anyone came to try to take it. He would do it, because Bruce wanted him to. His escape vehicle, a two-prop plane, waited in one of the outbuildings at the edge of the estate. He would go when staying another minute would mean capture, but until that last moment, Alfred Pennyworth would fulfill his duty and keep watch over his charge.

* * *

I won't let myself do anything rash. I will think this through step by step. The FBI is set up, ready to take me. The most obvious course of action would be for Fagen to simply notify them of my identity and send them to the Manor. But the bug I left in their base brings me only normal nighttime noises. Apparently, he hasn't yet decided what to do with me. He may want to keep this all unofficial, so he might send his own private forces. My first and most important objective is to protect Jim. Therefore, I begin by going to the Bureau office. 

They've tightened security since the last time I was here, and I am prepared for it, but every minute that I spend on it crawls over me. I will of course be signaled if the self-destructs fire. Nothing, nothing yet. Inside I use the camera recordings I made during my previous visit to allow me to reach and search the evidence lockers. I find tapes, conversations between Jim and me. All they've done is indict him. They're still building their case and haven't had much time to depose too many people. Without the tapes… it won't guarantee Jim's freedom, particularly depending on how the rest of this plays out. But it's a start. I take them and go.

The plane picks me up a few miles away. I call up the pictures it and the chopper have taken flying reconnaissance over Fagen's homes during the last two hours. A van left his ancestral home right at the beginning of my surveillance and two cars pulled up not long after. Eight men entered the building. Fagen left his residence a few minutes later, with four more men. They arrived at the other home. Then nothing for the last seventy-five minutes.

Looks like a strategy meeting. Twelve men plus the ten security guards who regularly protect the mansion as well as whoever came in the van.

Marlowe.

I fight the tide of empty fury that twists my stomach. Never have my instincts led me so wrong. But I will not let my anger rule me as I examine the blueprints and plan a route in. I haven't done much right this time, and I've known since I began that all it would take is a few crucial mistakes, because the odds that I would succeed in any of this have always been long.

Do I regret not leaving well enough alone and contenting myself with cracking the heads of muggers and petty thieves? It is a question I ask only to remind myself. I fight crime, not just criminals. What I do is not for me, for I will not let it be just that. Crime is a system that chokes my city, making its people victims, victims to unseen tyrants like Fagen.

If this is to be the end of my fight, and that I am far from conceding though I am prepared for it, if this is the end, then I will find a way to pull Fagen's defeat out of this mess before I go.

Fagen's ancestral mansion has long been open to the public as an historic home, but it has been closed over the last year for renovations. I see scaffolding hugging one corner of the house as I circle above. I suspect the security to be standard for a museum – infrared sensors, glass breakage and magnetic contact alarms, plus pressure pads on the artifacts, and lots of cameras. There is a security monitoring station in the basement, next to the freight elevator in the back of the house.

Nearly silent, the plane drops low over the house and I jump to the roof. Hanging from the eaves, I wire into the magnetic lock on a window leading into a storage area, and open it. Using the shadows I make my way to the elevator. I remove the panel over its buttons, short out the mechanism, including the malfunction alarm and turn to force the doors open.

I let myself down the dark shaft on a thick cable, stepping silently onto the top of the car, resting at basement level. On a thin wire, I drop a small but powerful microphone between the car and the shaft wall. With a tiny click it connects with the wall and I listen into the security center. There are only two men inside.

Even having to come in through the door it only takes five seconds to dispatch them. They weren't expecting anything, both were relaxed and inattentive when I burst in. They were barely prepared to reach for their weapons.

Either Fagen is so sure he has me and has nothing to fear, or somehow this is a trap.

I bend over the security control board and begin flipping through the cameras as I examine the system. There, a room with six men, conferring, but Fagen is not among them. I grit my teeth hard and wait for the images to cycle through. It is Fagen I want. Fagen and Marlowe. Ironically, I think of how close I really was, all along everything I needed to get to Fagen. His own personal assassin was right in front of me.

This, this is where I have failed. I thought I had hardened myself, that I was too smart, too in control to fall for such an act. If only she hadn't been… that little girl. That had to be a coincidence, just an accident of fate.

My eyes close hard and, my fists clench. Come on, Bruce. Don't lose it now.

But I have a sense of fighting an irresistible current, a wave of some force pulling me inexorably toward oblivion. How strong do I have to be? What will be enough before the world finally bends and lets me win an inch, just one inch?

I look up, forcing myself to focus on the screen again. And what I see shocks all feeling from my body in an instant. My hands fly over the controls, keeping this camera on-screen and activating the audio.

Fagen. He stands before Marlowe. Four other men are ranged around them.

"… losing patience with you, Nocturne."

She is strapped to a chair. He bends and tips her chin up. Her face is bruised, battered, and swollen.

"You know you can't hope to survive this unless you give me what I want."

"… don't … know," she says. Blood lines her lips, " what… you … want."

He shakes his head, "Stubborn," and he steps back. Two of the men move in on her. As I see their fists raise I feel a madness possess every inch of my flesh and I know how truly deep my failure is.

Then my attention focuses to laser intensity as I hear the blows fall. Her wretched gasps tear at me, but I continue without pause, running over the security schematics to pinpoint the location of the room they are in.

"All right," Fagen says mildly, and the beating stops.

Found it. I bring up the surrounding area on the auxiliary screens. I can't go in directly. He could kill her.

I hear Fagen sigh, "Nocturne, this is ridiculous. It's like you've lost your mind." I glance up, making myself look. Fagen is standing casually beside her, speaking in a conversational tone. She is limp and sagging in her bonds.

I have done this. She tried to tell me and I wouldn't believe her…

"This can't be about money. What did he offer you to get you to betray me?"

Her voice is so soft, so broken, "Redemption," she whispers.

"What?" Fagen is so surprised, he laughs. "You tried to kill me, to save your soul?" He chortles. "That's rich." He seizes her hair and jerks her head back. "You are nothing!" he snarls into her face. "You're lucky we found you useful for a while! You have one talent, my dear, and that is for killing. So don't think this is going to make a difference. Sooner or later, you are going to tell me what you know about him. And then I'm going to kill him. See, you and killing. They just go together."

She raises her eyes to him and her voice is suddenly strong, though it is no louder, "I'll die before…" He backhands her across the face.

"No," he says, "you'll die after." He looks at the other men. "Try the drugs. Call me when she breaks." He leaves the room. One of the men lifts a syringe and they move in on her.

Right now I will not let myself feel anything. When she is out of here and safe, then …

But now all that matters is her life.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

There are parts of my body I can't even feel anymore, though I know it's just my brain's defense, to not let me feel it. They're good – haven't broken a single bone yet. Between the drugs slogging down my thoughts and the taser they broke out a little while ago, it will be some time before they get to my bones.

… _sticks and stones… break my bones…_

_Hold on, hold on…_

Got so close – had Fagen's throat under my hands …

My thoughts explode as fire rips through me, every muscle convulsing. As my hearing comes back, there's that voice, talking so reasonably. I don't listen – I know all the torture techniques, can't… trick… me…

Don't talk, not a word… don't even think of… Useless – had my chance… couldn't even… Goddamn it! Tears… have salt… burns…

Focus! Drifting… can't let myself… The only thing I can still do is… not survive. Die … _before_…

More shocks, another blow to my stomach that feels like it bursts my spleen.

Thought I could… get one good… thing done…failed, useless… and Fagen will… will keep going… until he destroys…

Don't… don't… but my mind spins off and I am in another place, where the pain is… not gone – different… I feel hands on my arms (gloved, ungloved). I look up into his face… (masked) how could one man… (unmasked) why would one man…

One man…

Can't let his… name… enter my mind. It would be… too easy to… speak it…

Die before…before…

I hear a cry… but it is not me… how could it not… what is…

But what I see before me cannot be happening, and I shake knowing I've broken – because I can't tell the difference. And this hallucination is bending over me… I close my eyes to ward it off. Don't! …Get control!…

Hands are on me. The bonds holding me jerk and fall away. Hysteria sears through my mind and I try to fight – because I can hear his voice, and it is _his_ voice. But… it can't…I am… so weak…

"Marlowe."

My eyes open, and I sag, every muscles a lead weight as he carefully tries to lift me to my feet.

I touch his masked face. "You're… real," I can barely hear my own words.

His hands move over me, assessing my injuries. Each touch is agony, breathing is agony, but I… don't care. I look around us. The four men in the room are down.

His jaw is set, "I'm getting you out of here."

My mind… is still so slow, but some of the fog clears. There's still a chance…

"Fagen." My lips don't want to work, but the adrenaline surge is beginning to override pain or at least… I can feel a thread of energy cutting through the fire. "Get me… to him…" I try to straighten up, stand without his support. My spine feels fused. I manage – mostly – I have to cling with both hands to his iron arm. "I'll… finish this."

"No killing."

I stare at him, stunned for a terrible moment under his eyes. What he must see when he looks at me…

"All right," I say quietly. "There's … another way." Starting to breathe a little better, I focus and push down the pain. I know how much further my body can go, and it will be enough. It has to be.

"On the third floor… a secret safe with… records." Impatient with myself now – stand up! Have to move under my own power… "Three years ago, Fagen committed treason. Those records… prove it." I am holding his eyes. Will he trust me?

"Let's go."

* * *

Her breathing is labored, but somehow silent. I only know because I can feel the effort it takes her to expand her chest, nothing compared to what it's taking her to keep moving. I have one arm locked around her to support as much of her weight as possible. Very quietly she explains what it will take to get into the safe.

"Need to … find a computer somewhere.. have to get some parts."

"What do you need?" Her hand on my shoulder slides down as she goes limp for a moment. I stop moving.

"… okay… she says faintly. Her head lifts, I feel her legs shaking. "Keep going. I'm okay."

We're almost to the elevator shaft. She answers my earlier question, "Two diodes, a capacitor and about six inches of selenium wire."

"Will…" I freeze and she releases me instantly, sinking down against the wall in the shadows.

The guard turns the corner, and I have him by the throat so he can make no sound. A quick blow to the base of his skull, and I lower him to the floor.

I turn. She is curled up, eyes closed. I crouch before her and reach to help her up. The tiniest sound escapes her lips at my touch.

That's it, "You can't keep going. I'm getting you out of here." My tone will brook no argument. "I'll come back and get the records…"

She shakes her head fiercely and opens her swollen eyes. "Never get this chance again, " she forces out through gritted teeth. "And _I_ have to do it. You want to help me so damn much, help me do this!"

I steel myself, put my arm around her and lift. She draws in a harsh breath, sways for a moment and gains her balance. We reach the elevator. I force open the doors quickly. Someone's going to find the downed men soon, or at least notice their absence. But she's right, if I take her out, Fagen will move anything sensitive. I'll never have this chance again.

We've got to go up two floors, and I don't know if she's going to be able to hold on. I turn my back to her and she reaches one arm over my left shoulder and the other under my right arm, locking her hands around her wrists across my chest. I feel her nod and I start pulling us up the cable. Her muscles are twitching uncontrollably. I move faster.

Reaching the third floor, I swing us out of the shaft. The instant my feet touch down, her grip lets go and she falls, slipping down my back. Turning, I catch her arms, holding her up, but she is already straightening.

"Not much further," I tell her.

She nods silently, eyes closed. Then she looks up and we continue through the storage room to the main hall. She directs me to an area of the floor before a huge portrait of Fagen's great-grandfather. I flip the edge of the heavy rug up and pull it back.

I open several compartments on my belt and hand her the items she listed before, "I don't have selenium wire – will silicon do?"

She takes them from me, giving me a strange look before kneeling suddenly and bracing herself with one hand on the floor. Then she looks up at me while I quickly assemble a small torch to cut through the floor.

"Wouldn't happen to have a motherboard on you, too?"

I pull out the palmtop and gently toss it to her.

She catches it and smiles faintly, looking it over and beginning to wire into it. "My kind of man," I hear her say softly.

* * *

The bottle in John Fagen's hand slipped from his fingers as he jumped at the sudden shrieking alarm.

"What the hell!?" The three enormous guards that now accompanied him at all times had moved immediately and were checking every entrance into the room. One jerked his weapon up at the sound of feet pounding outside the north door.

A man burst into the room and flinched violently at the gun thrust into his face. Seeing it was one of Fagen's men, the bodyguard lowered his pistol.

"He's here! We just found both men in the security center unconscious. He's got the woman. They're on…"

Fagen slammed his hand onto the table. "Move! Call the FBI – I want air support, everything they've got – he's not to get away!" His breath went harsh, "And kill that bitch! I want her body brought to me." He looked to his bodyguards. "Get me out of here."

A piercing alarm rips through the still air. I drop the torch (no need to worry about being quiet now) and go down on one knee, driving my fist through the floorboards, splintering and snapping them. Two more strikes and I've cleared a hole about three feet across. Looking down, I see it – a two foot metal cube.

"Careful," she says, moving close, "It's wired into an explosive system below the floor. There's enough slack to bring it up."

I handle it gently, moving the cables that connect it to the mechanism below, to set it on the floor. She bends over it, pausing for a second to still her trembling hands before carefully opening the control panel. She doesn't have to tell me that the whole system is wired to explode if the safe is penetrated.

I keep one portion of my attention on her as she begins wiring a mechanism together, while I move to rig rubber shrapnel grenades around the entrances to the hall. There are at least fourteen men in the building. Now that the alarms have been triggered, Fagen will call reinforcements.

And the shrill ringing ceases suddenly. They'll be on us any second. She can't move from her vulnerable position. I watch her, her skin is bloodless and pale in the stark moonlight spilling in through the windows, except where dark bruises and swollen cuts stand out. Sweat beads on her face though the room is cool. Her attention is totally focused on her task. She doesn't look up once, even as we hear them coming from both sides. Even as they burst in and the grenades blow. Cries fill the air and bodies fly, slamming into walls. I concentrate on disarming them, but a burst of gunfire shatters a window. Glass rains into the room. I seize the gun's barrel, jerking it from his hand, spinning him to smash into another, who is jumping to attack. They go down and I have to run, leaping, to the other end of the hall, where two are regaining their feet. I drive my boot into one's face, gut-punching the other as I turn, kicking their guns, skittering, to the center of the room. I raise and loose a batarang, which streaks through the air, slamming into the forehead of the last man struggling to his feet at the far end of the room.

Only seven men here. In the sudden silence I hear cars screeching up outside.

"Got it!" Marlowe pulls open the safe and reaches in. I move quickly to her side. She holds up three gleaming computer disks. Handing them to me, she says, "Everything you need."

I put them away and reach to pull her up. No trying to sneak up this time, I hear them pounding down the hall. I hit a button on my belt, calling the chopper. With a quick movement I toss smoke pellets toward each doorway and back up, so she is between me and the wall.

Bullets rip through the air and I push her down, moving low to meet the two leaping through the cloud into the room, forcing a gun up with one arm, I strike the man's chest with the butt of my palm while my foot lashes out to break the other's kneecap. Gunfire from the other end of the room forces me up into a widely arcing backflip. I hear the chopper come in close and shots exploding outside. The rush of air out the broken window sucks some of the smoke out. I see a gun level at me from across the room. I dive. He's shooting wildly as he runs and it's the only thing that keeps me alive as I roll to the wall, snatching the leg of a heavy table and upending it as a shield. Then I hear a loud thud and the gunfire stops.

I come up to see Marlowe standing unsteadily over him, dropping the gun she'd used as a bludgeon beside the downed man. I move towards her, but have to turn as I hear several more…

Their guns blaze as I leap at them. They hadn't seen me in the shadows. And in the two seconds it takes me to hit them and still their firing, I do not hear her cry, but I turn in time to see her body go into a half-spin, blood arcing out – and slam to the floor.

I don't even look as I crack the two men's heads together and move, sliding down to my knees beside her.

It's in the leg, and I would feel relief except her blood is spurting out, pooling on the floor and I know she is too weak to take this. And I hear more men coming.

I pull her up, feeling her rapid, shallow breaths against me. I run, streaking across the floor. I hear the bullets begin to rip the air behind me and ignore them. Reaching the window, I leap as men pour into the hall.

We fly through open space and I hear more shots below. My hand catches the ladder, shoulder burning with the impact, and the chopper lifts. There are shouts and more wasted bullets as the ladder retracts and we head out, away.

I pull her up to the vibrating floor of the helicopter, ripping my cape furiously and binding her leg in a tight tourniquet. She may already have lost too much blood. I can see her body is in deep shock – skin clammy, lips almost blue, pulse fast and thready. Lifting her, I strap her into the passenger seat. The radar is already showing two pursuing copters. Fagen has called in the Bureau.

Taking the controls, I hit the thrusters and widen my lead. They have me on radar though and stay on my tail. Quickly I program a specific auto sequence into the controls and head for the ocean. Over the water, the plane comes up from skimming the waves and I settle the chopper's landing struts in their clamps on the wings.

Unstrapping her – still breathing – I pick her up and move to slide down the copter's leg. I fight the brutal rush of wind as I lower her into the plane and take the pilot's seat. The canopy snaps shut. The clamps disengage and I drop away, the plane's angled wings making it invisible to their radar. I make a wide circle, watching the chopper's signal as it slows and the two in pursuit close in on it. They fire warning shots first. Then they shoot it down, thinking we are still in it.

She's been completely unresponsive for ten minutes. I shut down the safety systems and push the plane to its limits.

I click on the radio, " Alfred, prepare the trauma unit."

"Yes, sir." He asks no questions.

We are at the cave in three minutes, and I am up and ripping the straps off her before the wheels stop rolling. Jumping down with her in my arms, Alfred is there, ready.

"High caliber bullet in the thigh," I tell him as we move swiftly to the table. "Hit the femoral artery." He is pulling the bandage back, reaching for a scalpel and clamps. I can tell from his face…

"What else happened to her?"

"Beaten." She doesn't move as he cuts. "Drugged."

He nods and clamps the artery, then suctions the blood. How can she even have that much blood left? He turns and begins to prepare her for a transfusion.

I push the cowl back and watch as he works over her, as she lies so still, white as a ghost. It takes him nearly two hours to remove the bullet, stitch the artery, muscles and skin, and bandage her thigh. IVs drip into her arm. Tubes keep oxygen flowing into her nose. Her blood pressure has remained at life-threatening levels throughout, but her heart never ceased beating.

Alfred puts his hand on my shoulder, "I've done all I can. Now we just have to wait and see."

I cannot even nod in response, and, after a moment, he withdraws.

I don't know how long it is before I move – a minute or an hour. And even then, all I can do is bring a chair to sit beside her.

The monitors continue their slow, steady beeping, but they are the only sign that she is alive. In my belt I have Fagen's defeat. She has given me everything I need.

And I have given her – the only thing that ever comes from my touch.

Death.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Alfred returned to check on her each hour. He did not try to speak to Master Bruce as there would be little point in the effort. And it was unnecessary besides… Alfred was all too able to imagine what he was feeling. Until he could tell him, you have saved her life, there was nothing worth saying.

As the hours passed, Alfred wondered if he would be able to tell him that. For he remembered other soldiers who had held on at the edge of death just as tenaciously as she was, and then had let go. Considering the amount of punishment she had taken… Alfred knew himself to be old-fashioned – he rather considered it a badge of honor – and it sickened him that anyone could torture a woman this way.

But she continued to hold on throughout the day, and Alfred wished there was some way to let her know that she had a reason to fight. Could she feel him there, immovable as a stone at her side, silently begging her to live?

He did not want to think of what her death would do to Bruce. He was already blaming himself, hating himself for not having been able to know everything, protect everyone – protect her, when she had been ready to die to protect him.

The irony of the situation struck him, and Alfred experienced the odd vertigo that first struck him that night, when he'd picked up the phone to hear that devastating news. The world had turned upside down in an instant. He was familiar with the senselessness of death in combat, but to have violence rip apart the peaceful world he had come to know at Wayne Manor. He'd understood then that the world, for all that he'd thought he knew how things were, was not as it seemed.

He had thought nothing could be worse than the feeling that call had induced, until he arrived at the police station and saw Master Bruce. Alfred could not recall another time in his life when rage had possessed him as it had then. He had never shouted at complete strangers or so utterly lost his decorum the way he did at that moment.

It was standard to wait for an adult before questioning a minor, so the three officers were just standing silently around the boy where he sat beside a desk. His face and hands were spattered with dark red, almost black spots. His pants were stiff to the knees from where he had knelt – Alfred could barely stand the image. How could they let him sit there soaked in his dead parents' blood?

As Alfred stormed across the room, he did not even see the officers backing up to get out of his way. But when he reached Bruce, and he looked up and Alfred saw his eyes…

From the shadows at the edge of the cavern, he looked at him now, and felt again the terrible sinking realization that what had come to him that night in the voice over the phone had come to Bruce far more deeply, and when he was far, far too young. For, the boy Alfred had known was gone. Not that it was not Bruce – it was. But every shred of innocence had been stripped from him. It was not the eyes of a boy he looked into.

Alfred didn't let himself absorb it then, as he'd knelt and reached for his arm.

His voice now quiet, he had said, "Come, Master Bruce, let us get you cleaned up."

The words were a comfort, so familiar in a world gone suddenly mad. He'd taken him to the restroom past the staring police officers. Alfred didn't ask any foolish questions – are you all right? He didn't offer any useless platitudes – I'm so sorry this happened. He went about it just as if they were washing up for bed, cleaning first his face, then reaching to lift his hands. When Alfred had asked him to open his right hand, curled in a tight fist, he had only stood, alert but unresponsive. Alfred had tried to move the closed fingers, and Bruce had just tightened his grip, his gaze on the older man's unwavering.

So, Alfred cleaned around it. Finished, and with nothing to be done about the pants since no one had bothered to tell him to bring a clean pair – he pushed down his anger, and took Bruce back out, where he remained at the boy's side while the detectives began to question him. Bruce's silent attention had been drawn instantly when they said they needed his help to catch the man who had done this. Quietly, and with devastating calm, he had described the man, directing his words precisely as he was asked details about the man's face, build and clothing. Finally, finally they told Alfred he could take him home.

Master Bruce did not speak unless Alfred asked him a direct question. He did not cry. Alfred could only assume he was in some sort of shock. He could think of nothing, nothing that would provide any comfort in words, so he put his hand on the boy's shoulder and kept it there as he drove back to the Manor.

Not knowing what else to do, he started to take Bruce up to bed, but at the top of the stairs Bruce turned and went to his father's study. He sat down on the low sofa. Alfred followed, switching on the lights. But he only sat there, his closed fist resting in his lap. The police had told him that Bruce had been found, at their sides, holding his fist tightly in that same way. When Alfred asked him stand to change his pants, he had cooperated. But he kept his hand closed.

Alfred cleaned the already spotless room twice as Bruce sat, silent, hour after hour. And all Alfred could think of was how strange things were now. Just the two of them, never again to hear Master Thomas' booming laugh, or Miss Martha's pretty voice singing. He fought back his own grief, for it was nothing. Bruce was all that mattered now. But there was grief in that too. Now he had only a weary old man to look after him, an old man who had lost too many friends.

Alfred remembered how clearly he'd known then that he only had one duty from that moment on – whatever Bruce needed he would provide to the limits of his powers. Even though he knew it would never be enough to heal his wounds. Alfred fought the rest of the memory…

Bruce had finally fallen into a fitful sleep, just as dawn was breaking. Alfred had moved to cover him with a blanket. But he had been stopped, horrified, when he saw what Bruce had been clutching.

There in his small open palm lay two of the pearls from his mother's necklace, their once perfect white surfaces stained red.

Alfred felt traces of the devastation that had rocked him in that moment as he saw that Bruce was at last asleep, head pillowed on his arms at the edge of the bed. His boy. How much was he going to have to bear?

He approached quietly to check her vital signs and Alfred felt a sudden surge of hope. Her blood pressure was up, heartbeat steadier, respiration stronger. He drew in a deep, silent breath. She might make it.

And Alfred found himself confronted with the unexpected possibility that he had not seen in his fear that she would die. What would happen if she lived? He looked at her pale, still face. Who was she really? And what would become of the two of them – now that all the secrets had been washed away?

* * *

Bruce woke with a start, alone in his room, escaping the demons that chased him through nightmare alleyways. Slipping from his bed he padded down the hall. He reached up with his small hand to turn the doorknob and push open the door to his parents' room. He saw them, in their enormous four-poster bed, but they did not see him, a tiny silhouette in the doorway, for they were engaged in a passionate kiss. He sniffled, still fighting the fear that had followed him from the nightmare into waking. His parents broke away from each other, sitting up, seeing him there, so small and frightened.

His mother held out her arms to him and he ran to her, climbing onto the bed and into her warm embrace.

"What's wrong, Bruce? Bad dreams?" she asked, stroking his hair gently as he nodded, clinging to her.

His father moved over to make space for him between them, "Come on, you sleep with us and if any monsters come after you in the night, I'll stop them," his deep voice rumbled as Bruce snuggled down into the covers. His father's strong arms closed around him and his mother, and he quickly fell asleep again, safe and secure, surrounded by their impenetrable love.

He stood beside Alfred in the open doorway of the ballroom, watching his father in an elegant tuxedo waltzing his mother about the huge room. Her sweet laughter rose as they spun, her red dress a cloud of gauzy material floating around her.

"Tommy, stop," she cried, breathless. "Let's save our dancing for the party."

His father lifted her off her feet, twirling her around as she shrieked delightedly. He laughed too, and then set her lightly on her feet as he kissed her. They approached Alfred and their son.

"Can't I stay up until you get home?" Bruce begged, though he was already in his pajamas.

"Oh, no, young man, you're to be in bed in an hour, and right to sleep. No reading mystery comics under the covers with a flashlight," his father said good-naturedly, chucking him under the chin and giving Alfred a meaningful look.

His mother bent to press a kiss on his forehead, "Be good, Bruce."

"I will, Mommy."

The light of late afternoon slanted across the grounds behind the Manor as Bruce sat beside his father, both watching his mother as she galloped past on her prize mare, riding bareback, as she loved to do. Bruce looked up when his father put an arm around him but Thomas Wayne only had eyes for his wife, her hair streaming out behind her as she skillfully turned the horse and started back towards them.

"Did you know your mother is absolutely the most beautiful woman in the world?" he said softly while Bruce gazed at him, transfixed by the look on his face. "I don't know what I did to deserve her, but I thank God every day for whatever it was that made her love me."

The street was dark. The man before them was dark. His father's face was dark with rage as the man reached for his mother's neck.

"Don't you _dare_ touch her, you filthy…" his father's hand shoved the man back. His mother's pearl necklace snapped, held in the man's fist. The gleaming white pearls fell. Gunshots roared in his ears…

I jerk up violently, gasping for breath, clenching my fists on the edge of the bed. My eyes close tightly, and even as I fight to shake off the visceral vision of the dream, my too-perfect memory brings me back to the present moment and all that has just happened. And then, I feel the slightest twitch against my hand. I look up slowly, almost afraid to hope. Her eyes are open – barely.

"…Bruce…" I can hardly hear her.

Numb with shock and relief, I rise to bend over her. "You're going to be okay," I manage to say softly.

She nods, almost imperceptibly. Her eyes drift shut, but she is trying to say something else. I lean in closer to hear her.

"… the disks…"

"I have them."

"and… Fagen…?"

"He thinks we're dead."

Her face seems to relax a little. Her fingers move again, just brushing mine. "…thank…you…"

What? Why is she…

"saved…me…"

Saved her? I don't understand because there is a small smile curving her lips and, very faintly she whispers, "My hero…"

She is asleep, and I am left bending barely an inch above her, shaken both by the knowledge that she will live – and that I do not deserve for her to.

I straighten, unable to look away from her, unable to understand … any of this. She had been ready to die to keep my secret. But I can't… Very slowly, my hand raises and hovers over her face, almost touching – but not.

Her hair is spread across the pillow and I brush it as I lower my hand. Then I lift a few of the soft strands and watch, as if from a distance, as I let them slip through my fingers.


	20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

I wake and, for a long, odd moment, have absolutely no idea where I am. Then I become aware of the medical machinery softly beeping around me – and everything comes rushing back in a surreal instant. I am alive. This is truly the last thing I expected.

It takes me a couple of tries before I can turn my head, and then I see him, standing at a large computer bank with several screens, focused intently on something.

My mouth is even more uncooperative than my neck, but I finally get some sound out.

"Where are we?"

He looks up instantly and comes to my side. I experience another surreal moment. The cape, cowl and gloves are gone, but he wears the rest of the … uniform? He is both men at once and I want to laugh at how bizarre it all is, but it would hurt too much.

"In the caves beneath the Manor," he says.

I know I am staring, but I can't not. So much that I haven't had time to process is welling up as I look at him. "Caves beneath the Manor," I repeat slowly, eyes moving up to try to see into the shadows hanging above. Caves – that's why the air was so strange.

Inwardly, I laugh at myself – right, that's why this is strange. What am I going to say to him? Dying would have been easier than this.

I move to push myself up a little, forcing my muscles to obey. He frowns at my efforts and reaches to hit a button on the side of the bed, activating a motor to tilt it up. I look myself over. Everything hurts with a low, hot ache, except my leg, which is numb. He is saying nothing, but keeps those unrelenting eyes on me. Finally he goes back to the computer and thumbs a button.

"Alfred, she's awake," and my reprieve turns out to be brief as he returns to stand beside me.

I concentrate on trying out various muscles, but cannot stand the silence.

"I've got to hand it to you," I say, "This is the last place I would have thought of for your base of operations." My eyes close suddenly. I'm so tired…

"That's the idea," he says.

That makes me laugh a little.

He looks up into the shadows on the far side of me, and then I hear the steps of his butler approaching.

"Good evening, Ma'am," he says in his clipped London accent, and I laugh again. Unbelievable. "How are you feeling?"

I am still smiling as I say quietly, "Never felt better."

He raises an eyebrow, "Indeed?" As he proceeds to examine me, he explains the damage the bullet had done and my current condition. I feel the strangeness of everything again as I realize that he had been the one who operated on me.

He finishes and says, "I imagine you are hungry. I will bring you some broth," and he moves to leave.

"Mr. Pennyworth," I say softly, and he stops, looking at me. This is certainly a new feeling. "Thank you."

He takes it like a perfect gentleman, bowing his head slightly, "Not at all, Miss DeSeve." He smiles faintly. "All part of a day's work here at Wayne Manor. And please, call me Alfred."

My God. I feel … shy. "And I'm just Marlowe. I don't have a family name."

"Very good, Miss Marlowe," he nods and withdraws.

"DeSeve," Bruce says and I make myself look at him. "Deceive."

I can't read his tone, but mine is ironic, as I nod, "Aren't I clever?"

And I see something move across his face but I don't know what it is. I can imagine though. Might as well get on with it. No point in pretending. I'm done pretending.

"I… didn't know. Until you were in my apartment. I wasn't even close to putting it together. And I didn't lie to you – very much. The things I told you about growing up in Gotham were all true."

"I know."

My eyes close in relief. He believes me. Keep going.

"Have you looked at the disks?"

"Yes."

It takes every ounce of courage I ever had to meet his eyes, "Then you know about my part in it."

He nods. I cannot read his face at all.

Say it. "As soon as I am able, I'll take the disks to Washington myself. I just want you to know I won't try to…" I feel like a fool, trying to prove myself before this man. "I'm going to take the consequences of my actions."

I won't let myself look away, but he just stands silent and inscrutable.

Finally, and his deep voice is quiet, "What will happen then?"

"First Fagen's political allies will drop him like hot coals in a an attempt to protect themselves and use the situation for some patriotic posturing. Fagen and Young and General Wolfe will be indicted for treason. Young will deny that I was working for the CIA at the time and claim that I was obviously a rogue under contract to Fagen alone. It might be enough to get him off. Wolfe, though, has little wiggle room – and he'll have even less when they send investigators to Angola and they find the American military weaponry. Since the whole operation was to benefit Fagen's overseas business interests by putting in power a faction more easily bribed to sell their people into wage slavery, his various business partners are going to have to deny knowledge. But a few will go down with him."

"I know all that. I meant, what will happen to you?"

God, did he never quit? He can't have any illusions about me now that he knows I helped initiate a corrupt coup d'etat that even now was bringing misery and death.

So, I give him the only thing I have to give, "I will be imprisoned for treason, and then I will be killed. This will destroy several powerful people, but enough will survive to take care of me. There are a couple of men in the CIA who aren't even involved in this – but they'll send someone for me on principle. You don't betray the Company."

"No," he says, his voice as steely as his slate-blue eyes.

"What do you mean – no? I just told you what I did. And this is only one operation. You want me to tell you about a few others?" What was the matter with him? Didn't he get it? "I once fire-bombed a bus in the West Bank to keep tensions running high in the Middle East. Forty-two dead. Then there was Pan Am 132 – that was me. How about when Fagen sent me to work clean up for a cocaine cartel in Bogota? Took down sixteen men and two women. I orphaned over twenty-five children…"

"Stop."

My voice is ragged, "I have to pay for all that. I _have_ to."

He had turned when he spoke and now his face is shadowed. This is about justice. He has to understand…

Quietly I tell him, "I'm dead any way you cut it. Once this information is released, Fagen will make sure before he goes down that everyone knows it was me. It will be obvious even if he doesn't. The only advantage to my not turning myself in is that I … might be able to fix a few of the things I've done before they catch up with me. But I have no right to ask for that chance."

* * *

She is speaking the truth. I should certainly be able to recognize the sound of it from her by now. It is a confession, both profane and sacred. Am I her judge and jury? Am I her priest? Or am I just her executioner?

Because I have already realized in these long hours waiting for her to live, that this information cannot be released without the ultimate consequence of her death. I am not certain why I made her say it. Did I need to know if she was aware of what she has done? And there is what I don't make her say, what I've known since I saw her in Fagen's hands. That I had missed my chance to save her, to trust her, that she had already signed her own death warrant the minute she decided to fight on my side. It is done, and there is no way for me to correct it. Even if I do not use what I have against Fagen, he would have her killed – and then she will die for nothing.

She is relentless. "Don't," she says harshly. "No pity." Then her words become soft, and that is worse, "I don't deserve any. And no guilt. _You_ don't deserve any. This isn't a tragedy. Please believe me," her voice breaks. "I owe you everything," she whispers and turns her face away.

"What… do you mean?"

She is quiet for a long, terrible moment. I can see her throat working silently. "When I was… following you, seeing you… protecting the ones…" Tension is crawling up every muscle in my body as I have to watch her struggle. Has there ever been a time in her life when she did not have to fight like this? "the ones… nobody takes care of. Punishing the ones… no one dares challenge." Her voice is faint, ghostly, "Remembering…" her eyes are closed, "being one of the lost children, knowing I'd become what had once terrified me… what had once destroyed me…" she stops and breathes deeply, but her hand is clenched so tight on the sheet that it trembles.

I can't escape her dark eyes as they turn on me, full of rage and pain and shame, but these are receding behind something … so deep, and so familiar.

"When I finally faced you – this won't make any sense – but I felt as if my whole life had been an illusion until that moment. Realizing… who you were, why you were… Reality just… shattered. I knew I didn't have to be what I was for even one more moment." Her eyes are clear, " If it meant death, it was worth it. It will always be worth it. You showed me there was … hope. Even for me."

How do I…

"What happens to me now isn't important. I finally did one thing right. I know it's not enough to save my soul, and I would gladly spend the rest of my life, however short that may be," and she grins at me, like it's funny, "trying to pay my debts, but I don't expect you to take my word for it. I'll do whatever you want to see justice is served."

I hear the roughness of my own voice and wish I could find some mercy for her, "I won't wait to release the disks."

She only nods calmly. "I can turn myself in later. Get them out there."

I can't stand the acceptance I see in her dark eyes. I turn from her.

But she won't let me get away. "Thank you, Bruce," I hear her whisper.


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-one

After she eats, she sleeps again, and the next time she wakes, she seems to be beginning to really recover. There is a little color back in her face (besides the dark purple-brown and sickly yellow of the bruises) and the swelling has gone down.

She eats again, grumbles when Alfred won't take out the IVs (I do _not_ like being hooked up to things, she said, giving him a dangerous look. Alfred, of course, was unimpressed.), and insisting he take down the demoral in her drip so she can clear her head and get some work done. That he concedes to, at a small nod from me.

No pity. It is the least I can do. And perhaps the most too.

"I've been thinking about who should receive the disks," I tell her.

"Haven't had much time to think about it myself," she says with a wry grin. "They can't all go to one person…"

"Two to the press," I say. "The Gotham Times and the Daily Planet. The last needs to end up in the hands of the Justice Department."

She nods, "The White House can't be trusted in this. What we need is a Senator."

"All right," I agree. "Which one? You'll know better than I who can make proper use of it."

Considering, she says, "Christine Liskey was on the SIC with Fagen. She fought him because she thinks American intelligence operations should be kept to projects with a specific strategic advantage, rather than the free for all it has always been. He ran her off the Intelligence Committee two years ago. She'd be the one. She's only in her second term, but she's very smart, and she believes in doing what's right. She'll have some personal stake in this as well, since it happened on her watch."

I am already keying Liskey's name into the computer and examining information about her. Marlowe waits silently. After several minutes I look at her, "Good choice. So Christine Liskey, Lawrence Shea and Perry White each get one original disk and copies of the two others. And everyone knows who has the other disks."

"With a few annotations from me to translate code words and note a few specific locations… it will hit the papers, and Liskey will focus the Federal investigation. That should do it. Bye-bye, John."

I set up a computer for her to work on while I make a few preparations. It is only a couple of hours later that she tells me the disks are ready to go.

"You should get some rest," I say, as I take them from her.

"Are you going to have any problem delivering these?"

I go back to my work, "No. They'll just find them on their desks tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow morning? It's three in the afternoon now."

"Yes?"

"And between now and dawn tomorrow you're going to plant these in Gotham, Metropolis and Washington? In the editor's offices of two major news outlets and a Senator's office?"

"I'll be back by seven a.m." I load the security schematics of Senator Liskey's office building into the plane's computer.

But my gaze is drawn to her when I hear her start to laugh. Not like I'd heard her laugh before. There is no hardness or cynicism in this sound. It has the purity of a child's laughter.

Her hand is covering her eyes, and when she lowers it to look at me, her gaze is as merry as her giggles.

"You are really…" she is practically breathless, "just too much. Oh god…" her arms wrap around her waist and I know it must hurt, but she doesn't seem to care.

I, of course, don't know what to say. I can only wonder how anyone who has been through as much as she has can still laugh like that.

"Why, Bruce," she gives me a wicked grin, "I do believe you're blushing."

I frown. "I am not."

"Well, you should," and she laughs some more, laying back and sighing.

I finally look away from her, wishing I could follow… what I'm feeling – but I can't right now. I can't…

She closes her eyes, saying softly, "And he looks at me like _I'm_ crazy." Still smiling, she lowers the bed and makes herself comfortable to go back to sleep.

I think maybe she is crazy. Thirty hours ago she had almost died and now she had a death mark on her head, and she laughed at me with – delight – and called me her savior.

Unable to formulate a coherent response to the strangeness of this, I push confusion aside and continue working.

* * *

When he returns, I'm awake, working at the computer. I take note of the time (6:37 a.m.) and stifle a grin. But I don't say anything as he passes by.

I hear him shower, and he reemerges into the main chamber several minutes later, having changed into some black sweats. He comes to stand beside me.

"There were no problems," he tells me.

I barely look up, "I didn't expect there would be," I say softly.

He glances at the computer screen. On it are news reports from an Angolan paper. I shut it off abruptly. Then I look up at him.

"How did you know where my apartment was?" I ask. "I just haven't been able to figure that out. It was rented under a completely unrelated identity that had nothing to do with Fagen and there was no way to put it together with Marlowe DeSeve either. How did you know?"

"We ran into each other on the street a few days after we first met at the Mayor's mansion. You were being threatened by some young gangbangers…"

"That was you?!" I feel dumbstruck. Staring at him, I hear myself repeat softly, "That was you." I don't even know what to do with this knowledge. There is a kind of eeriness to it. Even then, he was there, hand out to help me. Sounding remote to my own ears, I say, "Fagen didn't know what he was sending me up against. I never would have gotten close to you if it weren't for…" I suddenly can't speak anymore, and with a sensation like a spike through my stomach, I realize where I was that night, what he must have been doing there. I would never have gotten close if it weren't for – who he was, what had happened to him… I am lost in that sense of spinning reality. Is this what they call a twist of fate? That I would be brought to Gotham and find the one man on earth who could reach my black heart, and with the simplest of all things, an offer of help. So much more than I had ever offered anyone. And before him I cannot justify it the way I always have. Look what Gotham did to me – what choice did I have?

Because right now, knowing he came out of his own pain at only the sound of a stranger's distress, I know what choice I had… I wish he wouldn't look at me.

He finally breaks the silence, "I was doing some investigation into who got Callas off. I had just made Fagen as the one when I … ran into you. Since I'd just seen you with Fagen, and where you were and how you looked didn't fit with what I knew of you, I followed you. When I checked further into your identity, it was obviously a cover, but I assumed you worked for Fagen in a …social capacity."

So polite. I give a short, hard laugh. "You mean you thought I was his whore."

He pauses only an instant before saying, "Yes."

I raise an eyebrow, "I didn't expect to draw enough attention on this operation to need much of a cover. Little did I know." I can't help but laugh softly, shaking my head, "How's this for ironic, I was out that night gathering information on the street, trying to nail down a pattern of who you hit. I assumed you had to be working for some organization, that no one could do all this alone. That's what Fagen – and several of his rival power brokers – think too."

"I know," he says, with a grim smile, "It is useful for them to think so."

Damn, he's good.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, and the concern in his voice rips at me. I think again as I have many times in the past hours – I have to get on my feet and out of here as quickly as possible. God, did I screw up. I was so out of control when I went for Fagen, just mad to stop him. See where that got me – caught, shot – like a goddamned amateur… And he… he shouldn't have to be dealing with me. Not when Gotham needed him, and he needed to work, and I needed to become just a bad memory to him.

I will never understand… why he saved me.

"I'm much better," I say. "That martinet of a butler you have finally took the tubes out and gave me some solid food," I try to grin but it's not very convincing. "I'll be gone in no time. Just pretend I'm not here. I'm good at being invisible."

* * *

I don't doubt it. I think of how she was orphaned on the streets as a small child, how she must have had to hide, always afraid, always alone. I won't let myself feel any of the raging confusion trying to push in on me. I can't decide how to respond to any of this until I know everything.

I pull the chair up to her bedside and sit, "Marlowe," her name feels strange on my lips, "I want to know the rest of it."

She looks puzzled, "The rest of what?"

I try to be gentle, "The story of your life."

The casualness with which she had before spoken of her childhood I see suddenly to have been masking a hardness that disturbs me, for I know what it takes to forge that kind of steel in a person.

She begins to speak, telling me a tale of such devastating brutality I find it hard to breathe at times. Shot when she tried to protect the only people who had ever cared for her. She was then raped repeatedly and left in an alley to die. She was twelve years old. Forced to survive on the streets again, and far more wary now, she perfected her ability to pass in and out of human society unnoticed. She spent two winters more or less living in a basement storage room in the main library, taking advantage of access to one of the greatest repositories of modern knowledge. Though her formal education ended with sixth grade she had a quick mind and intense motivation, for her life depended on what she knew. With few options during those years to earn money for food, she stole and worked where she could – running numbers for neighborhood thugs, taking odd jobs at storefront shops, trying to avoid prostitution as long as she could, searching for some other way to survive (for she had seen enough to know hookers did not survive) in a world that didn't seem to want her.

But her emerging beauty at fifteen began to draw the attention of a low level ganglord. Not one to take no for an answer, he raped her. And she killed him.

She speaks of it like it was an epiphany. That she had the power to kill and she might have found a way to be safe at last. She managed to hide for a while from the two men who sought revenge for the death of their friend and partner in crime. When they caught up with her – she killed them too.

This attracted even more attention, and she became desperate with running to stop this horrible maelstrom that had started when she had tried to protect herself. She gathered information and planned a way to take out the boss who had ordered the contract on her. And she pulled it off. Just as she had been about to put a bullet in his head, he offered her a job.

Telling her he hadn't had much of an opinion of the men she'd killed and that he had only ordered her death out of responsibility to the gang, he was now impressed with her, particularly since she was a girl of barely seventeen. Looking her over, he said it was obvious she would be useful. He gave her an assignment, a rival he was seeking to punish for some slight, and let her go. When she returned he paid her a thousand dollars and told her he wanted to introduce her to a couple of friends. Within two years she had moved up to doing serious contracts. That's when she met John Fagen. He recognized in her something he could mold and sell. Arranging her training and never letting her forget that he had delivered her from the Hell of the city that made her, Fagen created a perfect tool for himself and others like him.

Not that she allows herself any mercy, speaking coldly of the murders she committed, the lies she planted that caused riots and chaos, the evil she spread, the evil she was. And I listen, hearing it with brutal honesty. Is remorse enough? Should she not be punished for these crimes? I believed her when she said she would work to correct them given the chance, and I know that either way the final punishment will likely find her not long after she leaves this place. I can't think of any other penance to lay on her.

Or can I? Because while I know I should be repulsed by the things she has done, I understand so deeply why she became Nocturne that I can't keep myself from forgiving her. How can I stand in judgment on her? I thought I had known loss, but she had never even had anything to lose. She has fallen silent, eyes fixed on her lap.

I rise quickly and move away. I can't … feel these things. I don't know how. I make myself look at her. Her face is turned away and I see her reach up quickly, wiping her hand across her cheek.

An inexorable sadness engulfs me like night swallowing the city. I can't let myself feel any of this… this strangely driving and soothing… desire. If I let myself touch this threatening ache for – what? I can't allow myself, not only do I not have room for it, but she has surely suffered enough.


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

It is a special kind of torture, knowing that right now the disks are being read, phone calls are flying, the balance of power is reeling as John Fagen's fate turns over. It may be days though, before they work out how they're going to release it to the public. I feel a horrible anxiety that Fagen will find a way to get ahead of the information, but I swallow it and wait.

It is early evening when he tells me that things are in motion. He had (of course) left bugs in each office so he could monitor what happened in case anything went wrong. He really doesn't leave much to chance.

I have far too little to occupy my mind during these hours. So I lie here, feeling him, just a small, but unfathomable distance away... Just to be near him frightens me. I have never imagined a person like him existed. To have taken his pain and twisted it by sheer force of will and forged himself out of tragedy into this... It stings every time I catch him looking at me. I am so much what he hates. How can he even stand the sight of me?

I hear a new feed come on and recognize the police band. It's late, I realize.

"Why aren't you in the city?" I ask. "No need to lay low now. Fagen will know soon enough that you're alive."

He doesn't answer, or even look up. Talk about your strong, silent type.

"You know, I'll continue to heal with or without you here."

Nothing. Okay.

"It's not exactly in keeping with your noble image to be looking for a night off when I've probably picked up a permanent limp so you can take care of Gotham. Batman."

Oh shit. That last may have been too much. My heart is pounding because he has stiffened in his seat and that infallible sense for danger I depend on is screaming at me. But I force it back and meet his gaze, which hits me like a lead weight, as he stands. I won't take pity, not even from him.

He turns and enters one of the side chambers. I start to breathe again. About fifteen minutes later, Alfred appears, with a wheelchair.

"Miss Marlowe," he nods in greeting. "Master Bruce has suggested it is perhaps time for you to move up to the Manor. I have prepared you a room."

My eyes close for the briefest moment, and then I pull my legs over the edge of the bed. Alfred helps support me as I stand. Carefully, I lower myself into the chair.

I hear him come back in and I look over quickly so I can see him swing the cape around his shoulders, fastening it at his neck. Reaching back, he pulls the mask over his face. He doesn't say a word, or look at us. Alfred is unlocking the brakes on my chair.

I sit back as he begins to wheel me to the elevator. Behind us I hear the low roar of the car as it comes to life and speeds away.

Alfred takes me to a room on the second floor. He offers to help me into the bed, but I tell him I'm fine. He says to call whenever I need anything. I nod silently. What I need is for him to leave, right now, before his kindness breaks me.

The moment the door closes behind him, hot tears begin to run from my eyes. There are no hitching sobs or even any sounds at all, just tears, rolling down my cheeks and dripping from my chin, like they will never stop.

I don't think I am crying in grief or sadness, neither is it joy or absolution. It is quiet, deep, and it leaves me more exhausted than I have ever been in my entire life.

It will be enough for me, just to know he is. I laugh softly through my tears. Part of me feels like... like I've heard people describe it when they were touched by the terrible hand of God - giddy with unworthiness, and frightened by hope. The rest of me knows, more keenly than I can stand, that he is just a man, a lonely man fighting a battle of impossible odds without giving an inch. Without giving himself an inch.

I don't even know what it is I am wishing for as I look out the tall window into the night. But I sit there, aching with it, for a very long time.

* * *

I stand outside the door of her room, hesitant and unsure. It is not a feeling I am familiar with - or that I care for, though I have felt it often enough of late. I should wait. But she has been so scrupulous in avoiding me over this last week. I have seen and spoken with her every evening of course, to make sure… to check on her condition, and she has been unfailingly polite and unreachably remote each time.

Silently I open the door, and it is several more minutes before I enter. Dawn is just beginning to cast a pale light through the windows She doesn't stir as I move closer. The bruises are almost gone from her face, which is more relaxed than I have ever seen. She sleeps as peacefully as a child.

I shouldn't wake her. The light around me slowly turns golden and I stand, looking at her...

Her eyes open. She blinks.

Before she can say anything, I step forward, "I brought you something."

She pulls herself up to sit against the headboard and takes the paper. I reach and turn on the bedside lamp.

I watch her look down and read the headline, "Senator, CIA and US Army Create Illegal Coup" - and in two inch letters - TREASON. She closes her eyes and takes a slow, deep breath. Then she looks up at me.

"Bye-bye, John," she says softly. "It's done." She isn't smiling, but her face, her eyes... there is a light on her, brighter even than the breaking dawn. How strange it is, to see someone transformed, right before my eyes.

Her voice is... close – I don't know how else to think of it, for right now she is the opposite of how she has been since she left the cave. She is here with me, close…

Her tone has a touch of wonder in it, "I guess anything really is possible."

Finally, she looks down at the paper in her lap. I can't tell if she's reading...

"What about your friend?" she asks quietly. "Gordon?"

"Page A6," I tell her.

And she opens the paper to the local news - the exoneration of James Gordon. She reads it quickly.

"Hmmm... What do you think?" she asks.

"I took their main evidence, but that doesn't explain the power shuffle. This Agent Jurado suspected the investigation of Gordon was politically motivated; perhaps he found enough to bring the Field Director down. Or, the Bureau Director cut Carter loose as a scapegoat to clean his hands of an operation Fagen put him on."

Nodding thoughtfully, she says, "Or, some combination of the two. But, who cares, right? I'm glad he's free and clear." She hands the paper back. I glance at the article and the picture of Gotham's new FBI field director, Anthony Jurado. There might be some hope for the Bureau in this city after all.

She is smiling at me. "Thanks for waking me."

I nod and turn to go.

"I should be able to leave in just a couple more days," she says.

I can't quite look at her as I pause.

"Are you going to let me in any time soon on where I'll be going?" Her voice is light. Slowly, I turn to face her. "I don't mean to push," she says, "but it makes a bit of difference in what kind of plans I need to make. So, you know, whenever you can get around to it..." Her amusement seems completely genuine. This must be where her resiliency comes from - finding an absurd humor in fate.

Her fate doesn't strike me at all as funny. And I do not want it to be in my hands... except that ... I do – the knowledge shakes me – but not like this. And I don't even know what that thought means.

"If..." I stop, my face feels like stone. "Where would you go?"

"Angola, try to straighten out the mess Fagen and I made there," she says without hesitation.

It takes a great deal of effort for me to say quietly, "Whatever chance you have to live you should take."

I have to look down when I see the glint of unshed tears in her eyes.

She speaks very softly, "It's not a chance to live I'm looking for. But a chance to be better than I was... I won't waste it, Bruce. I swear to you. And what I know - I would never..."

"I know." I say it quickly, to stop her. It's done. I have freed her... to walk back into a world that will be trying more furiously than ever to kill her. And she is grateful to me for it.

She is watching me. I can feel it, if I see her dark eyes, I...

Without another word between us, I leave the room, closing the door behind me. Walking down the wide, dark hall, I enter the study, moving past the portrait of my parents without glancing at it, exiting onto the balcony.

The sky is turning a delicate cerulean blue, streaked with pastel orange clouds. I am trying to force my mind to think, but I keep slamming into a brick wall, and in all the other directions is just a blackness, a nothingness. I don't know what it is, but I know I have to keep it from swallowing me.

I hear Alfred approach behind me. As he comes to stand at my side, he holds out a steaming cup. I just look at it.

"Warm milk, Master Bruce," he says. "Just the thing for sleepless nights. Or in your case sleepless days. You've had a few too many lately."

I take the cup, but set it on the ledge without drinking from it. I keep my eyes on the horizon. The wall won't give, even as the blackness comes closer. And I know these are all parts of myself I am fighting, somehow there are deep and hidden places in me that I have not yet had the courage to face. I can feel the power of what is on the other side of that wall, raging forces that if unleashed...

"Do you know," Alfred says, and I look over at him, "when it was that I first came to Wayne Manor?"

I frown a little, "Just before my parents got married, wasn't it?"

He nods. "Your father called me one month before the wedding, quite in a panic. He went on about the Manor and getting it ready for his new wife and the wedding plans which were throwing his work into disarray. But when I arrived here I found him very much on top of all the details. There was much to be done, of course, no lacking for work. But none of it was why he hired me at the time. He needed a – buffer. He was ... afraid to be alone in this house with your mother." Alfred smiles, fondly remembering, "He was so young then. Just about the age you are now." Turning to look out over the grounds, he says mildly, "I don't know what brought that to mind just now."

"Subtle, Alfred," I tell him. "Like a two by four to the head."

"Forgive me, Master Bruce, but that is sometimes what is required with you. And I do not believe there is time to be indirect."

I feel a spasm cross my brow.

"I am not ... my father."

"That does not mean you can't try to be like him."

I would prefer a two by four to the head to the look in Alfred's eyes.

I look down to see my own hands clenched tightly on the stone ledge. My voice is very low, "What... would I have to offer..."

"This," he says, putting his hand on my arm, making me face him. "is what worries me most about you. I would never fault you for choosing a hard path – but if you do not want to forget what it is you fight for, you are going to have to learn to take the opportunities life gives you. They are very few, Bruce, fewer for you than for others. Fewer for her than for others. Do not be afraid to live." He leaves me with that.

I feel the wall and the blackness now so close together there is no room for me to move.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

I haunt the darkened halls of the Manor, moving like a sleepwalker, or a blind person – hand out, lightly touching everything I pass, caressing the banister, exploring the walls. I want to memorize every detail. Down the grand staircase, the rich carpet soft and thick under my feet, making no sound so that I feel myself to be a wraith, just a ghost made of nothing but air, passing through the hall, moving into the shadowed alcove, opening the hidden door and descending underground.

The cave is cool. Now, under my feet is stone, hard and unyielding. Absolute darkness surrounds me, embracing me. Deeper into the earth, I find my way with careful steps and hands trailing along the rough-hewn rock wall. Sensors read my presence and soft lights slowly brighten around the computer bank, the medical bay and, just beyond, the spare cape and cowl. I move towards it, reaching to touch it. I see my hand is shaking.

A low thrumming takes my chest and a huge flight of bats bursts into the chamber above my head. I watch them, wheeling and diving as the car's roar reverberates through the caverns, then is abruptly silenced. Steeling myself, I turn to meet him.

Dark, animal, almost supernatural in the mantle of the bat, he emerges from the shadows. The mask slides back, and he is human again, a man… He stops, silently regarding me.

"I'm sorry," I say, keeping my voice steady, "I know I shouldn't be down here, but…" A heavy drop of blood strikes the stone beneath his left hand.

"Rough day at the office?" I ask lightly.

He glances down with a quirked eyebrow at the wound in his tricep, "Not really."

I see him move toward the intercom and say hurriedly, "That doesn't look too bad. I can stitch it. You don't have to bother Alfred."

He looks at me with a slight narrowness to his eyes. Smooth, Marlowe. But I want this done quickly and waiting for Alfred to come and go… I would lose my mind before it was finished.

He finally nods and moves to the medical bay, pulling the cape from his shoulders and unfastening his heavy belt. He lays both across the table, and then unbuckles the chest and back armor. Finally he pulls the tunic up and off.

I turn quickly to pick through the supplies. Making sure that I take slow and even breaths I face him. He lifts his arm. I begin to clean the wound, gently swabbing the torn flesh. His eyes are fixed on a point above my shoulder, and it's probably the only reason I can stand this close to him. I put down the bloodied gauze and reach for the needle and surgical thread. He doesn't even flinch when I pierce his skin. As his blood stains my fingertips I have to struggle for control of my hands.

Steadily, I stitch up the wound and begin to wrap his arm. I fumble a bit with the bandage and curse myself. Taping the wrap down, I turn to put the supplies away.

He bends his arm to test the dressing, and nods in approval. My eyes fall, as I face him again, on the scar marking his shoulder.

I laugh softly. He looks at me questioningly.

My eyebrow goes up, "Skiing accident? You're lucky I didn't get a good look at that." Or the other scars lining his flesh. There is a jagged four inch streak crossing the muscles of his abdomen diagonally from the bottom of his ribcage, another bullet scar through his right bicep, and a thick puncture wound just above his left hip.

He is looking at me in the strangest way, "It's not something I usually have to worry about. Not many of my dates would recognize the kind of scar a bullet leaves."

I give a rueful laugh, "No, I don't suppose they would." Did anybody know him? And that question rising in my mind freezes me with a new terror. He knows me – better than anyone alive.

"I'm leaving."

* * *

Her words force images on me. I see her body pierced by bullets from an invisible sniper, or writhing in the grip of poison or laying slashed on the ground, her blood pouring out around her.

Water dripping unseen in the shadows of the caverns ticks off the seconds in the taut stillness.

I don't know how to feel anything but rage at my helplessness. How can I let her go, when death is waiting for her?

But the answer… I cannot even…

Alfred is right. I am a coward.

"I wanted…" her eyes are cast down, "to thank you again before I left."

If I let myself… I fight, but I can't win. Even the idea carries with it – annihilation. I know too well the folly of happiness, for it can turn in an instant to grief.

"Not just for what you did for me," she says quietly, "For Gotham." She looks up. She looks at me like I am… so much more than I am.

She smiles and I feel myself stripped suddenly of the defenses built over a lifetime, faced with this single woman and her fierce, fragile smile.

"I've never had anything to believe in," she whispers.

I am eight years old again, watching her from my warm room as she shivers in the cold.

I raise my hand to touch her cheek as her whole body stiffens and a small gasp escapes her lips. I bend, pulling her to me and I am kissing her softly as she shudders. My arms close around her. If I hold her here, here with me, she'll be safe, and I… I can hold her, and live.

I feel her hands tighten suddenly on my arms, she is pulling away, voice quivering, "Stop – please."

Releasing her instantly at the fear in her words, I say roughly, "I'm sorry." I turn my face away. Did I think my touch would hold comfort for her? I should feel fury at myself for adding to her pain, but all I feel is emptiness.

Until I look into her eyes.

"You know," her voice is achingly soft, "what I am. You've seen me. How could you…" Tears begin to run down her cheeks, "_You_ - how could you when you know… I'm a killer, a destroyer, a cowardly, brutal…"

"Stop it!" I seize her arms. My voice drops low, "Stop." She won't look at me. I am so… unprepared for this. But I can't let her believe that.

"You _were_…"

"No! I _am._"

"Listen to me!" My arms are trembling. I don't want to hurt her, but she has to hear me. "I know evil. I have seen its face." Slowly, so slowly her gaze raises and her dark eyes meet mine. "That is not what I see when I look at you, Marlowe." She is so close and I feel the threat of all I stand to gain if I can just be brave enough to face all that I stand to lose. How can I fail her when she has shown so much courage? If she could risk death for me, then I have to find the strength to risk this for her. "What I see when I look at you…" my voice is a rough whisper, "is hope."

And that is what I see warring on her face with disbelief. My hand touches her face, her lips part under my thumb. Her arms go around my neck slowly as she comes to me. I close my arms around her with the greatest care as if she is some fragile object I am afraid of crushing… or is it that I am afraid if I try to hold her too close she will disappear like a ghost, or a dream? Her mouth is quivering under mine and I have to struggle to keep my hands gentle.

"Bruce," she whispers against my lips, "don't hold back." Her hands are on my face. I see her eyes. She hides nothing from me. I know there can be no more denial… "You can't hurt me," her voice achingly soft. If I let myself fall… "You heal me," she breathes.

And I feel the wall burst. My restraint is shattered in an instant and she meets me with an equal urgency. I am spinning, feeling her against me, feeling a thousand hot stings of stone splinters raining down on me.

Without releasing her, I reach and find the cape with one hand, snapping it out on the cave floor, drawing her down beneath me. Fabric is a flimsy barrier as we seek each other's skin. She shapes herself to me like our bodies had been made to fit together. The soft, desperate cries issuing from her lips drives me to a madness I have never before felt, or even dreamed. Each touch is as keen as a razor blade along my skin, each kiss an explosion of needs too long denied, now, almost too exquisitely fulfilled.

Whatever the cost, for this moment, somehow I would bear it, for I have never been needed like this. I hear her, whispering my name again, and again, like she is saying a prayer.

* * *

After the first fierce wave of passion passed, I had wrapped the cape around us and carried her to my bed. Now I hold her close and her hair falls like a veil around us as she kisses me slowly.

"This is the only place," she whispers, "in all of my life, where I have felt safe." Then she lowers her head, pillowing her cheek against my chest. My arms tighten protectively around her as I feel hot tears on my skin.

"What is it?" I ask softly.

Her voice is slightly muffled, "I don't… know how to feel this much. I feel like I'm drowning…" her words drop so I can barely hear her.

Is she inside my head? Or is it just illusion that she is speaking my own thoughts to me? I am thankful she cannot see my face. I fight the tide of emotion with action.

"Marlowe, we have to decide what we're going to do."

"No, we don't. Not right now."

"I have to make sure you're safe."

She raises herself to look at me, "There's no such thing, Bruce, you know that. You _know_ that."

"There are ways. I have a house in Switzerland. You would be safe there." I have to try.

Her ragged voice tears through me. "It's not that simple. I can't hide myself away. I have too many debts – blood debts – I have to pay. That's why you're letting me go, remember?"

My brow tightens. I can feel myself shutting down inside, familiar mechanisms clicking into place to protect me… from my own capacity to live.

Not this time.

I pull her close to me, I cannot hold her close enough. My eyes shut against the pain twisting like a wild animal in my gut.

I feel her lips brush my ear, "Even one moment with you is more than I deserve."

* * *

It is strange how the next day passes largely in silence. Words have little meaning between us beyond information, but every touch, every look is terrible in its force. And I burn each one into my soul. I feel myself to be in orbit around him, gravity preventing me from ever being more than a certain distance away.

There is still much I do not begin to fathom in him, that it could cost him so much to think of my death… and I know that is what drives him as he makes me prepare, demanding lists of equipment which he gathers while I put together for him details of what I plan to do, exactly where I plan to go. I don't argue, even when he tells me how much money I will take with me.

Night has fallen again and we are in the cave. I am searching CIA files to compile the list of my primary targets' locations, while he works at the electronics lab. Rubbing my leg gingerly, I stand and stretch. Walking over to him, I lean over his shoulder.

"What are you making?"

He is working on a small device set in a slim metal case. "Turn this on – here," he shows me the tiny embedded switch, "if you ever need me. I've built a monitor that will give me your location anywhere in the world. This isn't finished yet, though. I'm going to add a beacon so I'll always know where you are."

He looks at me and I fight to keep him from seeing… I am beginning to feel light-headed, as if I might fly apart at any moment.

"Tomorrow, though," he says quietly, and he flips the case closed. It now looks like nothing more than a small oval pendant bearing in relief the shape of a bat.

Tomorrow…

He stands and takes my hand for a moment. I will never let myself forget what his touch feels like.

He goes to change, and the moment he is gone I have to put a hand on the table to steady myself. I feel the maelstrom that has already turned the world inside out. I know he feels it too – but it will not keep him from what he does. Even as I suffer a pain deeper than I have ever imagined, I revel in knowing that the world could fall to pieces and he would still be here, fiercely protecting his home. My home.

Oh god… I must stay strong. The desire to forget my resolve to pay for my crimes, and stay here with him has been growing to levels of screaming intensity. I can feel my will weakening. If I do not go soon – now – I never will.

And I cannot stay. If I give myself happiness now when I do not deserve it, my blackened soul will eat me alive. I won't allow that. I won't be any less that worthy of him. I am but a sinner before Heaven's gates, and though I am penitent, I am far from having earned my salvation.

This final test I know I will fail – and for that I can only hope to live to see forgiveness one day. My fingers touch the pendant, running over it. I would have liked to have him watching over me… I hear him come back in and, as I turn, I slip the pendant into my palm.

He is fastening the cape around his shoulders as I come close. Pulling the mask over his face, he stops to look at me as the car's canopy slides open behind us.

"One more kiss?" I say lightly, smiling. He will remember me like this, made whole by his touch. His strength makes me feel small as he folds me in his arms. And I will remember him… It takes everything I have to let him go.

The car's roar fades to echoes and I remain, looking at where he had last stood.

* * *

The hours on the street seem long, but I do not give in to the brief but recurring temptation to go back early. I know our time is short. But I know that she would not thank me for shirking my duties to be with her.

Still, heading home feels better than I imagined it could.

She is not in the cave when I arrive, and I don't stop to change – just pull the cowl, cape and gloves off, dropping them on the stairs. The Manor seems eerily still when I emerge into the study. My steps quicken. I open the door to her room, but it is silent, empty.

Now I move slowly, nightmare slow, to the door of my own room. I push it open, but I know I will find nothing, no one.

She is already gone.

For one brief instant insanity possesses me, betrayal and furious helplessness warring for my soul. Then everything is washed away in a wave of grief that engulfs me with such power I feel I am drowning in it.

"So soon?" I ask the shadows.

I move to the window of my room and look out to the wall that surrounds my house. And, as if I can still see her tiny, lonely figure in the night, I press my hand to the glass.

The first light of dawn breaks over the horizon.


	24. Chapter TwentyFour

EPILOGUE

_In the blood of Eden,_

_Lie the woman and the man…_

- Peter Gabriel

I hate nights like this, when Gotham seems to be nothing but a great black gluttonous beast locked with me in a bloody and never-ending death struggle. There's a major power war going on between three different syndicates, all trying to move in on a vacuum left by our apprehension of the boss of the Cole Square crew. Take one out, three more move in.

I return from setting the microphones in the ceiling above the room where a tactical meeting is just beginning. Touching down silently, I move across the shadowed roof.

Robin doesn't move when I put my hand on his shoulder, staying focused and keen as a rapier, watching the windows across the street through binoculars. If I still manage to surprise him, I don't know it. He stopped showing it about a year ago.

We both switch on our audio and listen to the meeting. The street below us is busy. I pick out the undercover syndicate muscle stationed along the front of the building and am about to set it as a challenge for him to do the same, when I see from the movements of the binoculars that he already is.

I move to the far side of the building to see along the street on the other side of the building, following this person, then that one, examining each figure as he or she moves through the maze of bodies and cars. Packed so close together, they hardly even see one another. The ones who stop and talk are doing hard business, and so, focused on their own needs, they are as alone as the ones just passing by. Sometimes, I think this city was made only to harden and isolate everything and everyone in it.

Then, I catch a glimpse of the certain way a particular woman walks down the dangerous street, just a glimpse before she turns the corner, and I recognize something in the set of her body, the straight shoulders that will not bow, the courage born of a life lived under fire – I know I am reading into this, because just that momentary sight was enough to remind me.

Sometimes it doesn't take even something as small as this especially on nights like tonight. This is when she comes to me to bring back the knowledge that Gotham breeds more than loneliness and destruction, to remind me that I have things for which to be grateful to this city.

For if Gotham made her, then there is hope for anyone – even me.

I had seen my life stretching before me, a lonely battlefield, and I was more than prepared for it. I was certain it was my true and deserved fate, laid on me by Gotham. I had thought any ability I had to truly live this city had long ago taken from me.

And then Gotham finally gave a little back. It was really only a tiny concession, but it was enough for me to learn what I needed to know. The proof of it – he has just come to stand at my side.

Because I in no way doubt that if she had not said to me, "you heal," it would never have occurred to be me that I might have the power to do what I have done for him. Or that I could let him do what he has done for me.

I know it has an illogic to it, that I can see past the threat of losing him, sometimes I wonder at my own madness, putting him in harm's way… it is rare that I understand all of it. Why it makes so much sense that this is the way it should be. Taking that chance every night… I won't let it be about what I can stand. It is about him being what he has to be, and if I can heal him just a little then he can grow to be stronger than I ever could.

To this day it seems strange that with her memory comes this feeling of hope. Because these are not the only times she comes to me. Even now I sometimes wake in my bed reaching across emptiness – and I feel the sour taste of madness in my mouth because I know I am reaching for her, but she is not there. I don't know where she is. I don't even know if she is still alive.

Though she took the homing device with her, the monitor in the cave has remained silent year after year. Since she left before I could finish it, and before she finished telling me her plans, I have never had any way to find her. She never contacted me. I know what that most likely means. I have always known.

I stopped expecting fate to make sense a long time ago. Maybe that is why some stubborn part of me holds out. It makes sense, given what I know of the world, that she is dead. And there is no reason in the idea that one day as I travel the world on business, I will turn and she will be before me, alive and real and looking at me the way she did the last time I had seen her. There is no reason at all in believing Fortune could be kind.

But I look down to the boy at my side, and know that miracles do happen, even in my life. It may be foolish for me to hope for another. It is foolish. Foolish and futile and mad.

But I would never let that stop me.

_finis  
_


End file.
